Petrichor
by Prosely
Summary: Naruto is trapped in a dangerous situation. Sakura sees something she shouldn't. Sasuke's illusions are more attractive than his reality. Kakashi's ghosts threaten to consume him. With time running out before the activation of an ancient seal, the world will have to rely on Team 7 once more, but Konoha's most infamous team will need to learn how to trust each other again.
1. Unsettling Revelations

**Petrichor**

 **By: Prosely**

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 _Petrichor: (noun) a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather._

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 **Chapter 1: Unsettling Revelations**

Few things were as incredible as Sasuke's chidori, glittering in the morning sun's rays as the blue lightning danced across his pale skin. Naruto took another step back, feeling the static build and watched the air around the raven-haired shinobi grow darker. The powerful jinchuriki could taste the electricity on his tongue as it crackled in the atmosphere.

He inhaled deeply, and was overwhelmed by the peculiar scent that clung to Sasuke: the fiery fragrance of lightning and the rich smell of earth after a thunderstorm. It permeated the very air Naruto took into his lungs with deep, gratifying breaths; feeling adrenaline sing through his bloodstream from the anticipation that was building at the base of his spine.

His clones frantically tried to strengthen the rasengan they were forming in his hand to counteract the blow from the chidori, and the future Rokudaime Hokage of Konoha felt it pulling from his deep chakra reserves, drawing from the kyuubi's power. The energy warped the air around him into a red haze reminiscent of desert heat.

The rivals leapt for each other in complete unison, their hands outstretched to clash, tension rising as the light rippled in their hands until the very last moment when they swung away, diverting their powerful attacks into their surroundings.

As much as they both wanted to put their respective formidable power to the test, they knew they couldn't destroy such a large portion of the Konoha training fields, and had made the unspoken agreement to always stop their attacks before things got out of hand. Of course, they still pushed towards each other like polar ends of a magnet, pressing forward despite the increasing tension until the very last possible second, testing to see who would pull back first.

Sasuke diverted his chidori into a nearby tree with an impossibly graceful backflip, katana flashing in the amber light of dawn as the sun continued its ascent across the lake.

The subsequent blast shook the ground, and Naruto could feel the heat on his skin as the tree was completely incinerated. His clones helped him redirect his rasengan above him, channeling the excess energy directly towards the sky. It hissed around them both like something alive, swirling for a brief moment and making Naruto's skin tingle as it washed over him.

He glanced up to meet Sasuke's usual look of derisiveness, but instead, saw something much more…predatory in his rival's dark gaze that made the jinchuriki's heart pound from the unspoken challenge. They were both hunter _s_ fighting for dominance, their entire existence focused on the desire to _win-_ to be the best. Sasuke's crimson eyes felt like embers as they raked over him, burning trails of heat across his skin as the Uchiha seemed to evaluate how much of a threat Naruto posed that morning.

Ever since the Sasuke had returned, he had been quieter then ever in regards to their rivalry, though it hadn't lessened at all. If anything, Naruto thought, catching his breath as he slid into his taijutsu stance, their mutual thirst for fierce competition with each other had only increased alongside their vast growth in power.

The Uchiha head tilted back, his body sliding into in a mock slouch, the only evidence of tension in his frame being the derisive set of his mouth. Swirling cerise eyes regarded Naruto's stance with a glittering of contempt, before, with a sudden rippling of muscles. Sasuke _moved_.

Naruto's arm flew up as he felt the raven's chakra, tasting the raw lightning in the air again before he saw the fist flying towards the side of his face. The blonde reacted just as fast, jumping back and twisting to the side, grabbing Sasuke's wrist and planning to swing the bastard into the river. But the nuke nin made another elegant spiral, breaking out of the blonde's grip and vanishing again, so fast that it was impossible to track him with the human eye. As Sasuke tried to come in from his other side Naruto countered with a vicious kick of his own, but the shot went wide. The jinchuriki heard the whistling of his rival's katana, and his kunais deflected it in a flash before the blonde was back on the offensive, attacking with his signature flurry of punches and kicks that forced the Uchiha back to parry against him.

Anyone watching wouldn't have been able to even see the blows the two exchanged—from the outside, they were nothing but black and orange blurs that clashed in clangs of steel and flesh around the field, the air around them becoming heavier with the latent energy and chakra swelling in the atmosphere.

Sakura, who had first stumbled upon Naruto and Sasuke's private "training sessions" a few weeks ago, had taken to watching the two from a safe distance, her own chakra perfectly masked as she studied the men who had once been her teammates and best friends. The morning mist curled around her feet, and in the distance, she could hear the faintest sounds of Konoha waking up to greet a new day. She tucked a strand of pale pink hair behind her ear and watched as Sasuke's hands moved to form some quick, successive hand seals, and fire roared out with a hiss into the crisp autumn air.

She didn't understand why her former teammates felt they had to keep their entire training a secret from her to begin with. Sasuke had certainly been warming up to her—their conversations had graduated to whole sentences in the past month. Naruto was sunny as always, meeting her for their weekly lunch and training sessions where she got to practice with using her full strength on a kyuubi vessel that healed faster then she could hurt.

Whenever the three of them were together, the two were much more _subdued_ then she recalled from their childhood, Naruto usually only rising to Sasuke's decidedly weaker barbs half the time. And though the blonde still muttered about the Uchiha's "bastardly" ways, it wasn't with half as much intensity as he used to have in regards to their quiet, self-serving teammate. If anything, the usually unstoppable force of energy named Uzumaki Naruto just seemed… _tired_. Tired of fighting, tired of blowing up at someone who would now only scoff in response.

The waves in the lake undulated beneath the force of their blows as the two clashed again, water rippling out across the shoreline. Sakura knew that Kakashi and Tsunade were working the blonde to the bone as they prepared him to take the title of Hokage, but although he presented a convincing façade of energy with their other friends—Sasuke seemed to bring out this…edge to Naruto that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

When they were younger, Naruto had lived for the moments when he finally got Sasuke to react to him. But perhaps he had just stopped because he really had grown in more ways then she realized, Sakura thought, shifting her stiff legs as Naruto and Sasuke moved out to the water. Then again, Naruto had always been a little emotionally stunted when it came to the Uchiha, so that might explain why their new rivalry-friendship left her ill at ease. She just wasn't used to the idea of Naruto and Sasuke behaving "normally" towards each other. Certainly not when they were acting as cordial as they had been.

So even though Sakura was confident that her friendships with the two were strong, and despite that she certainly believed that Sasuke and Naruto were entitled to something that was just...for them, she was still slightly hurt by not even being invited to their training in the first place—though the more she watched them (even at the cost of sleeping in on her days off), the more she got the feeling she was falling behind again. It didn't matter that she was easily one of the best kunochi in the fire nation, Naruto and Sasuke...they were on a whole different level. They made the ANBU look _clumsy_.

Regardless to the fact that the medic-nin couldn't figure out exactly what it was that was so…off, she nevertheless studied them closely. She would get to the bottom of the matter eventually. Sakura had learned to trust her gut feelings, and they were screaming at her that there was something else going on with those two.

To begin with, on the mornings they trained, they didn't say a word to each other, not even throwing a joke or customary insult. Sakura wouldn't have believed that Naruto could be so quiet for so long if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. They just both appeared an hour before dawn broke and prepared themselves in total silence. Sasuke would wrap bandages around his knuckles and move through his katas, and Naruto would meditate for the same length of time, his eyes closed as his faced the river. Sakura still wasn't sure what their unspoken signal to begin was, but suddenly they would be _moving_ , and it was like the rest of the world faded away.

Watching Naruto and Sasuke fight was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was like music for the eyes, played by the most talented orchestras in the world; except in this case, Naruto and Sasuke's instruments were their bodies, their weapons, and their kinetic energy; twining together in a seamless dance and making the world around them seem almost garishly ordinary.

It was when they fought that Sakura felt the most nostalgic, because they finally looked like themselves again: Sasuke with his signature smirk and his impossibly dark crimson eyes swirling and lit with a sort of fire Sakura had almost forgotten existed, and Naruto's face reflecting that light and—shining with unadulterated joy. They moved with such feral grace and beauty, free to fight without fear of hurting the other, flexing the full strength and range of their abilities. When one did manage a hit on the other, it made Sakura's heart leap to her throat, because the resounding noise would sound like the earth breaking, and was always almost immediately followed by a second ringing crash that reverberated in her bones, as neither man would settle for the other rival getting away with a hit for long. It incited an even more of intense tension to the atmosphere, making the pale pink hairs on the back of her arms rise.

Naruto suddenly reappeared close to the edge of the clearing, spinning from the force of Sasuke's blow. He was bleeding sluggishly from his arm, though Sakura could see the glow of the wound knitting up even from her distant vantage point.

She tensed as the blonde's back came towards her, ready to use her prepared teleportation jutsu if it looked like she was going to get caught. Though she knew her technique to mask her chakra was essentially flawless, she still wouldn't put it past Sasuke's sharingan to find her anyway. And though nothing happened outside of training those mornings, some part of her still felt like was watching something she shouldn't be, and knew that Sasuke would see it the same way and be more then a little pissed if he caught her.

The Uchiha in question materialized in front of Naruto almost an instant later, re-sheathing his Katana as he said something that Sakura couldn't catch with apparent disdain. Naruto responded with a savage growl that reminded the kunoichi just how dangerous and deadly her usually bright friend truly was before he jumped forward, grabbing Sasuke by the collar and slamming the man's back against a tree.

Sakura waited for the Uchiha to vanish or throw a punch as Naruto invaded his rival's personal space, the blonde's voice raised so loudly that even she could hear it, though she only made out a few words from the distance she had imposed. Close up, the sound had to be deafening.

"Bastard—how dare—" Her breath caught as the tension in the clearing seemed to rise even more as Naruto pressed even closer and—

Oh.

 _Oh._

Sakura felt her jaw slacken as she watched Naruto's lips crush into Sasuke's with a passion and violence that was reminiscent of the fight they had been absorbed in mere moments before. He was met with equal ferocity as the dark haired man's fist tightened over Naruto's shirt, pulling the blonde closer as lightning skittered over the Uchiha's bloodied knuckles.

If Sakura had thought that their battle was like music, their kissing was a full symphony, their taunt bodies rippling with tension as they moved with that same unity—that unity that, for all her brilliance, she still couldn't wrap her mind around. had always been like night and day, dark and light—but somehow, seeing them now it suddenly made sense, Sakura thought, struck with a moment of clarity. It just seemed, right for them to just...be.

Naruto's hand tilted Sasuke's head back and slid from the raven's swollen lips (was Sasuke panting?) to kiss down the Uchiha's pale throat, teeth flashing as he bit and nipped down velvet skin. A corded muscle in Sasuke's shoulder rippled as he shifted to push back against Naruto's frame—or was that a shiver? The kunoichi swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry as she _saw_ Sasuke moan, his lips parting and his fingers flexing on Naruto's arm, threatening to rip the fabric of the man's jacket. The sheer sensuality of the moment shook Sakura from her stupor, and she realized that she finally had crossed the line into watching something very private—she was turning into Kakashi at this rate!

But something about the two together just held her in a strange sort of riveted trance. She didn't think she had ever seen Sasuke so expressive, so _alive_. It was as if some of Naruto's light had broken off inside of the other man and was being reflected back into the world.

Her brain still short circuiting too much to process what she was watching, Sakura quickly took a step back to teleport back to the front of the training grounds, deciding she would figure out what to do from there. She quickly formed the seal with her hands, glancing up to make sure her old teammates were still—well— _preoccupied_ , when she felt her muscles begin to seize up in her skin, the chill of overwhelming dread settling into her very bones.

Sasuke's eyes were open and bleeding red, black tomoes lazily swirling into the mangeyko sharingan as he met her stare dead on, threatening to pull Sakura into a world of exquisite agony. The spinning crimson stare held the kunoichi in place, even as Naruto, still oblivious, pushed a tanned hand under the Uchiha's dark shirt, his fingers splaying out against a long, unnamed scar one the ivory skin of Sasuke's stomach. The raven's gaze didn't leave Sakura's as Sasuke let out a fierce growl of approval; his long and elegant fingers threading into Naruto's hair and tugging the blonde back up to his lips. His ruby-eyed stare remained fixed on her wide jade eyes, almost mockingly keeping her frozen as he ravished Naruto's mouth, drawing blood as a the blonde's touched parts of him that Sakura was still not quite sure she could entirely comprehend without getting weak at the knees.

She swallowed as Sasuke smirked at her in the indolent, self-assured manner of a cat who had caught a mouse but was obligingly releasing it to flee; finally closing his eyes and turning from her as his head fell back against the rough bark of the tree and Naruto returned to his vicious ministrations on the Uchiha's neck. Sasuke's lips involuntarily parted with in a small, muted gasp as the blonde's mouth closed on the base of Sasuke's throat, his rival's pink tongue dragging across the his pulse before biting down, causing the Uchiha to hiss as Naruto moved his knee between the raven's legs.

Sakura had to go. She had to go _now_.

With a shock of smoke, she vanished, still not processing what she had just seen as she leapt from where she reappeared at the front of the training grounds to the nearest rooftop. She hurried as fast as she could to the hospital, moving from building to building with an almost desperate purpose, barely seeing what was in front of her. She had to do something to stop the images she felt were now burned onto her retinas, looping over and over again like a bad movie. She needed something to distract herself with-

And if that meant being elbow deep into some poor shinobi's guts, then so be it. She would figure out how to deal with the new problem of _Sasuke and Naruto_ later.

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Sasuke flexed his hand, curling his fingers into a fist to resist temptation, even though he felt like it was overwhelming him, hotly pressing into him, every centimeter of his skin craving more contact. It was wrong; and he knew, deep in his heart, that what he was doing was sick and selfish.

Then again, he had never advertised himself as anything but selfish, so who was Sakura or anyone else to judge? He thought, trying again to justify what he was doing; but it was a weak attempt, even in his head.

Here he was, the last Uchiha, again only seeking to satisfy his unnamed and unvoiced desires, and not giving a fuck for potential consequences. You would think he would've learned by this point.

But the fact that Sakura had seen his first successful attempt at getting Naruto to kiss him was troubling enough. He couldn't believe that he hadn't detected her the entire morning-or any other time she might have spied on them-until the spike of heat and chakra from that direction when his…experiment finally yielded _results_ -

Besides, it wasn't as if he was truly warping Naruto's mind all that much, he reasoned. There was a reason that fighting and sex went hand in hand: the emotions, the heat, the adrenaline, they all revved the same receptors in the brain. His mangeykou sharingan just shifted his friend's perception a little, so that while Naruto still believed they were having a really great spar, in reality, he was helping Sasuke deal with the excessive amount of pent up sexual frustration the Uchiha had been dealing with concerning the idiot.

Sasuke hadn't even realized he had the power to do anything about his increasingly uncomfortable feelings about Naruto until a few weeks ago. They had been training as usual, and the kyuubi vessel had gotten pissed off about an offhanded comment Sasuke had made about the Hyuugas, most likely because rumor had it that Naruto and Hinata had finally gone on a hesitant date, and the blonde was still clearly nervous about impressing the other girl. Sasuke had said something along the lines of how weak minded the clan was, and how the trait seemed to be inbred.

And suddenly, Naruto was far closer then Sasuke could remember him being in recent memory, his hands gripping his rival's arm hard enough to leave bruises, trembling with a rage that made Sasuke's pulse race. The Uchiha's sharingan had reacted out of instinct and reflex, and suddenly, instead of throwing a punch at him, Naruto had snaked a hand into his dark hair and pulled the raven close in a thrilling, excruciatingly painful way that sent electricity spiking to every nerve in Sasuke's system.

"Fuck. You." The blond hissed, his lips inches from Sasuke's own, his hot breath forcing its way down his rival's throat. Sasuke hadn't even realized that his bloodline limit was even tapping into his latent desires for the blonde and pushing them onto Naruto until a moment later, when the other man snapped out of it.

The kyuubi vessel stumbled away from him, blinking furiously and looking dazed as the mangekyou faded from Sasuke's eyes, and the Uchiha remained motionless, immediately understanding what had happened. His sharingan had simply shifted Naruto's awareness and actions so that while his body was doing what Sasuke (albeit subconsciously) wanted him to do, in Naruto's mind, the blonde had actually just thrown a solid punch at Sasuke's face, which the latter had dodged at the last second.

As Naruto returned to the real world, Sasuke had immediately turned away, declaring he was bored and ending that day's session as he tried to process exactly what happened. The blonde idiot had of course stomped off even more pissed off then usual, but still showed up for their practice the next morning.

Not that Sasuke had any doubt that he would. If Naruto was anything, it was loyal.

The saddest part was perhaps that brief, flickering moment, when he was caught staring into the oblivion that was those impossibly blue eyes, Sasuke had actually believed it had been real: that the strange dreams and cravings that had been haunting him since his return had strangely manifested into reality.

And then he was struck with abject horror as the enormity of his own projected desires washed over him.

Sasuke was utterly disgusted—with his lack of control, and moreover, with himself. He almost burnt an entire section of the old Uchiha complex to ash that afternoon before he managed to calm himself down. Afterwards, he meditated for hours in the estate's overgrown gardens, wondering if he was going mad, or if the Mangekyou had finally been broken by his hands, to have it react in such a way to what he had previously labeled as a distant, isolated interest.

Sasuke had assumed that his brief sexual fascination with the blonde upon his return was just a part of the overwhelming emotions and sensations of coming back to Konoha. He thought it was something that would pass with time, until it manifested in his sharingan that strange, concrete way that put the raven on edge even hours after Naruto had been so tantalizingly close to him. The Uchiha's mind continued to replay every moment, even as Sasuke tried to push the damning thoughts away: all he could concentrate on was the taste of Naruto's hot breath, the salty, sea water smell of his skin and the crystalline bead of sweat slipping from the blonde's temple to trace the curve of his tanned face.

Pale, elegant hands trembled in his lap as Sasuke relived the sensations, giving attention to the darker hunger that swirled in the back of his mind, his desire that easily metamorphosed into bloodlust. He wanted pain. He wanted to hurt Naruto, blaming his rival for making him feel this way. Sasuke wanted bruise him and break him and be broken in return. He burned for the blonde to hate him, to destroy him, just as he needed Naruto to _want_ him, and what was worse was that Sasuke wanted him too, more then he had ever desired anything else in his life and he was so _fucked_ -

Sasuke vomited after that, spilling his dinner behind an azalea bush. Twice.

He steadied himself and took an icy shower to clean up. Toweling his hair and feeling far more in control after the normalcy of his daily ablutions, the raven decided to open the clan vaults. He was determined to find the source, the _reason_ for his twisted desire for Uzumaki Naruto because there was no other plausible answer in his mind.

Unless he finally _was_ going insane, he thought, adrift in the piles of ancient clan lore and histories, having read his way through the bulk of it with little progress.

"You're quite sane little brother, all things considered." Itachi's voice had replied languidly from within his mind, as if Sasuke's mental projection of the elder Uchiha was amused by the younger's strong aversion to the foreign desires stirring his blood.

"The sharingan runs on strong emotions: on passion as much as hatred. Naruto has existed on both ends of that spectrum for you. He is the reason your sharingan activated in the first place, is he not?" If Sasuke had the power to glare within the frame of his own mind, he would've. "So this…lust, it's just a reaction to the sharingan then? Some strange side effect?" The younger shinobi demanded.

His Itachi-projection shrugged. "Naruto was always the trigger for its transition and change, even before I gave you my power. He is intertwined with your sharingan, almost as much as you are. Conclusively, it's safe to assume the two are connected."

And somehow, blaming the sharingan for that strange, bubbling craving made it a lot easier to deal with in Sasuke's head, justifying his attempts to activate the sharingan's…extraneous use again in their training. Surely, he thought, he could just kiss the moron, satisfy the desire, and move on with his life.

A part of Sasuke that the raven didn't really want to give voice to felt that his new "gift" was a particularly cruel twist of fate. His eyes could grant him his every desire, but it would always be within the parameters of some sort of an illusion. The development in the sharingan's powers was new and clearly something he needed to cultivate, since it would make him close to unstoppable—but for all of his training and attempts to rework the ability by himself, he found himself attempting the new technique almost exclusively in Naruto's presence, and always for the same reasons. Always for the same outcomes, despite what he told himself.

And with each failed attempt, his once latent desires had become more agitating, the dreams more hellishly arousing, and the sharingan's gift for eidetic memory an exquisite sort of curse. It was Sasuke's personal hell, being attracted to the _idiot_ who was still the only person in the world with the ability to cause such monumental changes in the Uchiha's psyche.

But there hadn't been a repeat performance until today, when that same feverish Naruto was on him again, smothering him in that scorching fury, and Sasuke realized that he needed that condition—he needed Naruto's rage to feed into the mangekyou and give him what he wanted. The Uchiha paid attention and felt the shift that time, aware of it taking over as his eyes darkened to an unnamable shade of crimson.

He saw the genjutsu reality Naruto's mind easily fell into, one where he and Sasuke just went at it again in full force, unaware that his physical body was being directly influenced by all the powers of Sasuke's hunger and pressed forward-

But then Naruto's mouth was on his and all of the calculating parts of his brain began to break into barely cohesive fragments of thought.

If this was what an illusion was, he never wanted to leave his newly formed reality, Sasuke decided, his world no longer existing outside the feeling of Naruto's slightly chapped lips on his own, a calloused hand catching on the smooth skin of his throat. He wasn't sure if the blonde knew exactly where to touch him because of the sharingan's influence, or if it was in spite of it.

The other man seemed to radiate a heat that sunk into Sasuke's bones, rattling the Uchiha's usually flawless self-control. The raven had been hoping to just kiss the blonde and get whatever lust for the man he had out of his system, which was his usual way of dealing with the fleeting attractions he had felt for others in the past. But as Naruto slid to his neck, laving it with a rough attention that drew a sound from the back of his throat he hadn't known he was capable of making, Sasuke realized that his suddenly insatiable hunger for the other man ran far deeper than he had initially thought.

But then he felt Sakura's presence, and he had to drag himself from his pyrrhic victory to meet her wide jade eyes. The sheer shock reflected there told Sasuke all he needed to know, and the twisted, vindictive side of him that had flourished under Orochimaru and Madara for so many years held her in his thrall for a few thrilling minutes, forcing her to watch Naruto's mouth and hands touch and lavish his skin, his touch almost burning him in its intensity. Realizing that he was in far deeper then he realized, Sasuke decided he had enough of his former teammate's voyeurism and set her free, hissing as Naruto's teeth sunk into his jugular.

Sakura vanished with a soft gust of wind, and the distraction from releasing her from the sharingan caused it to falter. Naruto's eyes lost their slightly dazed look as he started to blink, his fake memories layering over the ones his body had just experienced. It took every ounce of Sasuke's willpower to push the idiot back, aiming for another quick kick towards the man's side to reinforce the false memories his doujutsu had created.

Naruto blocked the blow as a reflex and habit more than because he knew what was going on, but Sasuke pressed his advantage, the heat from his own frustration fueling him. Perhaps it was a bit Pavlovian, trying to get Naruto to hurt him after the blonde just made him experience incredibly pervasive desire that he still needed time to qualify, even as it seemed permanently settled into his blood, singing whenever the blonde got too close.

Sasuke hated how weak the idiot made him feel, hated that he had been reduced to his own subconscious and latent desires for the blonde taking action for him then his doing anything himself to approach the issue. And there was that stronger part of him that was still repulsed by himself, repulsed by how much _more_ of Naruto he wanted. He craved the blonde with a violence that made most of his previous kills seem apathetic in comparison.

He translated that desire and his own abhorrence for it into a furious onslaught as Naruto blocked again, blue eyes hardening as the jinchuriki moved to take the defensive. They clashed once more with a resounding ring that reverberated through the forest. Naruto back flipped to crouch, his feet skidding to a stop as Sasuke mirrored him, feeling the earth crumble beneath his sandals.

The blonde was still flushed and panting from earlier, though he clearly attributed it to their training, Sasuke could still taste the man's salty sweat on his tongue. The corner of Naruto's mouth twisted in consternation as the kyuubi vessel realized that somehow, fighting with Sasuke had stirred parts of him he hadn't expected, and his sudden realization that he was turned on colored his face, made the dark animal that had taken residence beneath Sasuke's skin rumble.

"Let's call it a draw, eh?" Naruto asked with false brightness, better natured now that he had burned off some more steam, albeit not in the way he thought. Sasuke, at that point, couldn't even remember what he said earlier to piss the blonde off. The Uchiha shifted his weight to his left foot; his usual look of boredom etched onto his features as he coolly regarded the source of all his problems.

"If you say so, moron." He said. Instead of getting pissed at the nickname like he used too, Naruto laughed, his arm stretching up and behind his head.

"Yeah yeah bastard, keep telling yourself that. We all know I kick your ass four times out of five."

"Tch." Sasuke scoffed, trying to sound as nonchalant as he appeared. "Try one. If that." Falling back into their usual camaraderie of jibes and mockery felt so normal, the Uchiha could almost pretend the heat that was still prickling over his skin was just an illness that would pass. That all of the strange desires he had concerning the blonde would go away if he just ignored it long enough.

"You're just pissed because you choked first!" The blonde goaded, his chest puffing out in pride. "But still-it's nice that everything is finally…I dunno, getting back to normal. It feels right again." He said, that contagious optimism blooming again as he looked for some sort of distraction for how clearly uncomfortable he was feeling.

Sasuke opened his mouth for a dry retort about how Naruto should remember that people were still trying to kill both of them when they both turned to the sound of claws padding through the grass nearby. The Uchiha rolled his eyes, having become familiar with the sound during the past six months whenever his former mentor wanted to "check up" on him.

Pakkun, Kakashi's sardonic dog summons, appeared from behind a bush, his pug-faced head tilted at a confused angle as he sniffed the air in the clearing. Sasuke felt the muscles between his eyes tense, though the rest of his body was the picture of laid-back repose. He knew the dog could still smell the arousal that had been in the air better then anyone. He would just hope the idiot vermin would keep its mouth shut.

And he still had to figure out what to do about Sakura. She would probably be too embarrassed to say anything...or maybe she would just have to be... _persuaded_ to keep quiet.

Pakkun gave the Uchiha a hard look, as if he could read the dark stream of thoughts behind those fathomless eyes, before beginning to address the blonde. "Naruto! Ya gotta head to the Hokage's tower, quick. I had to find you this morning because you weren't in your apartment when they sent for you." The blonde looked confused. Blue eyes glanced in Sasuke's direction, and at the other man's shrug, shifted back towards the small dog.

"Sent for me?" He asked, puzzled. He had been going to see Tsunade almost daily since she had woken up from her coma, and he didn't know what could possibly be so important that they needed him so immediately. Sasuke remained motionless as Naruto shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "What do you mean? Is Baa-chan alright?" The blonde asked, more worried as he quickly re-sheathed his weapons. He felt Sasuke watching him as he did so, an unreadable expression on the man's face. Pakkun made a toothy, shit eating grin.

"Didn't you hear the news kid? You're getting married!"

* * *

 **End Chapter 1.**

 **I know there are a lot of changes to the cannon plot, but that's what makes it fanfiction, no? I'll go into more detail as the story progresses, but let me know what you think! Be prepared for more character appearances soon, more focus on Naruto, and a lot more frustrated sexual tension ;)**

 **I tried to keep the balance between all of the reflective thinking and action for this chapter, but I had to set up the characters and the setting for the story. Additionally, I want to try and stay as true to the characters' personality as I can—which is why Sasuke is having such a difficult time dealing with his burgeoning attraction and why he's blaming it on his sharingan (I do see him as the one to notice it first and be in total denial). Also, I feel like the initial attraction could be arguably connected to the sharingan's initial manifestation and the progress of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship throughout the series. As the plot thickens, this may end up being a returning cause of grief for you, dear reader, because Sasuke and Naruto are both just too damn stubborn to realize what it is they really want.**

 **I'm not sure how long this piece will be in total, but I don't think it will be too bad. Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think! Reviews are love.**

 **Ja ne!**

 **-Prosely**

 **PS: The cover art is NOT mine. It was created by an artist named Lily who is incredibly gifted, so you should go find all of her stuff. Just search for "Naruto Lily fanart" and her work should come up!**


	2. The Contract

**Chapter 2: The Contract**

* * *

"WHAT?!"

The shout could be heard all the way at the Hokage tower. Kakashi let out a small sigh as he tried to smile awkwardly at the guests through the fabric of his mask. "I'm sure Naruto will be here soon." He said cheerfully over the edge of his book, appearing nonchalant even as his mind raced about the potential consequences of the two strangers in the room. The woman was stiffly seated on the silk couch reserved for dignitaries. She spoke in soft, nervous tones to the man standing next to her, whom Kakashi could only presume was some sort of hired bodyguard.

She was clearly of a high civilian class; her dark red hair was pinned back in the elaborate style favored by the daughters of daimyos, offsetting her pale skin and warm burgundy eyes. She was one of those people whose age was rather ambiguous, though Kakashi would hazard a guess that she was somewhere in her mid-twenties. Her skin had appeared dewy and bright even under the unflattering fluorescent lights of the Hokage's office.

Her companion was so non-descript it was almost suspicious, with bland features, brown eyes, and muted brown hair streaked with gray, held back from his face by a Kumogakure hitiate. If anything, he seemed to offset the almost ethereal appearance of the woman who was claiming to be—

A part of Kakashi knew his denial was from a bias; because he simply didn't want to believe what Tsunade had just informed him. He remembered Kushina: and though yes, the strange woman clearly had the same coloring and a vague resemblance in her features, Naruto's mother had always been so down to earth and… _substantial_ —the farthest thing from the pretty female who was all but glittering on the couch.

Tsunade drummed her manicured fingers on the Hokage's desk as she inspected the contract before her. She couldn't believe what she was reading, but there it was: written out and marked by an actual blood seal, clear as day, the sort she had previously only read about being used in cases with very…rebellious members of ancient clans fighting against arranged marriages.

Kakashi was struck again with a feeling of muted gratitude for the older sanin as he glanced up at Tsunade's carefully preserved, youthful looking face. She had been acting Hokage for the last few months, taking over the role again after she had recovered from the worst relapses of her coma.

Kakashi was a near perfect ninja and brilliant tactician, but having to deal with the mundane, everyday life of the village in peace time as Hokage had almost caused him to have an aneurysm. Tsunade had returned after he begged her (in actuality, he more or less bribed her with promises to a lifetime supply of money and sake, because Hatake Kakashi didn't beg when it came to important things) and quickly set everything to rights again. His main job now, aside from assisting Tsuande where she needed it and overseeing the ANBU, was to guide Naruto's training so that the kyuubi could take the burden of leadership from them both and fulfill his life long dream.

Life would be good then, Kakashi mused, thumbing through another page of his book. He would retire (well, retire as much as shinobi _could_ ) and spend the rest of his days caring for his ninekin and reading his favorite smut while wasting away in bathhouses, called back only when Konoha faced a crisis Naruto worried about handling alone. He was so looking forward to that.

The awkward silence was interrupted by a large puff of smoke as Pakkun appeared in the middle of the room.

"He's on his way boss—though he doesn't seem happy. The brat is with him." The dog reported, clearly not caring if he was overheard before he vanished again. Kakashi resisted the urge to hit himself in the face with his book. Pakkun had formed a deep affection for Sakura once he realized she was easily persuaded to offer him and the rest of Kakashi's "loyal" summons belly rubs and homemade biscuits. And Naruto had earned the pack's hard earned respect, so they usually referred to him by name. Which of course meant that Pakkun was talking about a former student of his he had only met face to face a few times—

"Baa-chan!" The doors to the office slammed open as the former number one hyperactive ninja of Konoha seemed determined to revive his old nickname. He strode in despite the protests of the Jounin outside, shadowed by the dark and devastatingly handsome Sasuke Uchiha, who was all but smoldering with a barely contained irritation, even broodier then usual.

Kakashi wondered what would happen if he just blew a bit on the last surviving Uchiha like the embers of a fire—would the man actually spark and burst into flame?

No, that was probably a terrible thought to entertain at the moment. At least, not if he didn't have a death wish, Kakashi thought, eyeing the pair. No blowing Sasuke.

He held back snicker at the sheer perverse nature of the statement, knowing his former genin team would beat the shit out of him for it if he had said it aloud, and as he released a small cough to cover it, he could feel Sasuke's fury turn towards him, and the Uchiha's black eyes felt like poisonous ink seeping into copy-nin's skin.

Kakashi was again reminded that the age-old adage _if looks could kill_ actually came from poor civilians getting on the wrong side of an Uchiha and his or her deadly stare. Well, Sasuke's gaze was probably the only in existence that _could_ kill a man if he really wanted to, so it wasn't that far fetched—but the young Uchiha was always had a penchant for the melodramatic.

The silver haired nin rolled his lone visable eye. Sasuke really needed to find an outlet for his repressed energy aside from the incredibly difficult missions Kakashi had been sending him on. The Uchiha was clearly still overly derisive of being confined to village life and village laws, and that disdain was wearing on him like sand on stone.

The stranger had risen from her seat on the couch at the entrance of the two shinobi, and both of the men turned to her, presuming she _was_ a visiting dignitary of some sort. The strange woman's eyes were riveted on Sasuke for an uncomfortably long moment (most women had trouble _not_ staring at the Uchiha for extended periods of time), before she managed to turn them away to meet Naruto's hard blue gaze. The jinchuriki stiffly nodded to her in greeting, while Sasuke didn't even twitch, formalities be damned. Kakashi shook his head. It was almost as if they were determined to remind him of what a terrible teacher of etiquette he had been.

Not that he ever bowed to anyone either. So maybe it was in fact a testament to how great his teaching skills were—yes, that sounded much better.

"Naruto." Tsunade said, her fingers rising from the table to settle on her hip. "I think the entire village heard you arrive." She admonished him, though the jinchuriki didn't seem inclined to look repentant, meeting her gaze stonily.

"Please, sit down." The Hokage asked, gesturing to the two seats in front of her. The strange woman moved over to them with soft steps, gingerly sweeping into one hard backed chair with the innate grace that only came with one born into nobility.

"No thanks." The blonde said firmly, his fiery blue eyes flicking over to where his old sensei was leaning nonchalantly against the far wall, looking to the entire world as if he was still engrossed in his book.

Kakashi realized with a sudden clench in his gut that Naruto really was growing up—a very few short months ago, the kyuubi vessel would've already been demanding to know what was going on. But the man in front of him, the one who looked more like Minato with each passing day, was growing into his looks with the same propensity for languid power. It radiated off him, even as he appeared to just be standing casually in the middle of the room, his presence drew attention and respect like moths to a light. He was going to be Hokage before any of them realized.

Or rather, he would be if he could somehow get himself out of the newest trap fate had thrown in his way.

"Fine." Tsunade snapped back, the silent "brat" clearly tacked on to the end of her clipped response.

"But Uchiha, you leave. This is none of your business." She said. Kakashi felt Sasuke bristling with an acidic retort, and quickly interrupted into save them all from any further bloodshed.

"Well then Hokage-sama, I'll just be going too, if no one else is needed then…" He trailed off. The Uchiha glared daggers at him. Kami, he never even got a speck of gratitude did he?

"Both of them stay. I want their opinions on whatever _this_ is about." Naruto said, calmly, but with a tone of authority that reminded the room how he was going to ascend to Tsunade's position soon. She sighed with what seemed like exasperation, but Kakashi knew that it was actually from relief, because she knew if worst came to worse, Kakashi and Sasuke had the best chance of keeping the jinchuriki's temper in check.

Well, Kakashi was in any case. Sasuke on the other hand might just make it worse. But that was a risk the Hokage seemed willing to take, because she waved them closer to the desk with a sigh. The strange noblewoman's bodyguard had taken up his position next to her again, unblinking, even as Sasuke's eyes raked over him like hot coals.

Kakashi's respect for the man went up a little. Few could handle the Uchiha's fully developed glare without so much as twitching. Lesser ninja had pissed themselves.

"Back to the matter at hand. Naruto, I would like for you to meet Uzumaki Asuka." Tsunade said, and Naruto's gaze shifted to take in the soft noblewoman whose head remained bowed in her seat. If it weren't for her hair, Kakashi would've touted this whole thing up as some weird political move to get control of the Kyuubi. But those long crimson tresses were almost identical to Kushina's, and Asuka's face a clear reflection of shared genes—there was no question about that.

"I thought that all of the Uzumakis were dead or missing?" Naruto asked, and his voice was tinged with a touch of disbelief and…wonder? As his eyes stared at the woman's hair, and then studied her face in consternation as she shyly glanced up at him through thick lashes. Kakashi remembered his old pupil saying something about meeting his mother before, while trying to bind the Kyuubi to his will…was he seeing the same similarities that Kakashi had noticed?

"To my knowledge, they were. But she is the last remaining member of your mother's clan, and she can prove it." Tsunade said, breaking the strange staring contest the two were having and gesturing to the papers on her desk as Asuka rose to her feet again, maintaining eye contact as she swept into a deep bow, her kimono billowing out behind her.

"Hello Uzumaki Naruto. It is…a pleasure to meet you at last." She said demurely. Naruto's confusion faded as the realization that this was a family member crossed over his features. For an orphan who grew up with no one, the lure of family was almost impossible to ignore. He broke out into a strained smile.

"It's great to meet you Asuka!" He said in a voice that was somewhere between pleased and confused, though Kakashi could tell the blonde knew he wasn't out of hot water yet.

"But I don't know what any of this has to do with what Pakkun was saying earlier about marriage or whatever that was." He finished, the odd smile on his face directed towards the stranger, unaware of Sasuke's hands flexing as the Uchiha's sharp mind rapidly connected the dots about the situation.

"You're trying to force him into a marriage contract?" The raven-haired shinobi all but hissed, the air in the office dropping a few, tangible degrees. Kakashi really had to tell Sasuke that the Uchiha was reminiscent of a brewing storm when he was angry, his aura crackling palpably in the room against his will. It tended to put people off their food.

Asuka's body guard moved as if to step between her and the clearly volatile Uchiha, but the woman raised a soft hand.

"You speak as if I had a choice in the matter." She said, her voice still melodic and soothing as she evaluated the nuke nin with cool burgundy eyes that were the one thing wholly unlike Kushina's. While the former's gaze had been open and kind, Asuka's eyes were angled and closed off, hiding some part of herself from the world.

"You must be Uchiha Sasuke." She said quietly. "I've heard of your…exploits." The noblewoman let the unsaid war crimes the dark haired man committed hang in the thick silence of the room. Kakashi saw only one of Sasuke's fingers twitch, and chose that moment to let out a large sigh.

The charcoal colored eyes that looked as if they were threatening to bleed into red flicked over to the silver-haired shinobi's form as Kakashi casually moved his back away from the wall, standing straight up again, silently reminding Sasuke to _behave_.

Honestly, having children had to be easier then dealing with _his_ hot-blooded students. Weren't they supposed to be adults now?

Speaking of which, the one that was usually the loudest and most unpredictable was frozen in a stillness that was very unnatural.

"A marriage contract?" Naruto asked, disbelievingly turning back to his old teammate. "What the hell are you talking about Sasuke?"

"They were used in ancient times, back when blood seals were much more popular." Tsunade, who had been quiet through the entire exchange so far, finally intervened, gesturing to the papers before her again.

"The head of a clan used their shared blood to bind others to do his or her bidding. Usually these contracts were used to keep other clan members in line, or force them into arranged marriages that would benefit a clan's standing. Before the hidden villages, power struggles in Shinobi clans were…very common, and blood contracts were one of the few ways that leaders could keep order."

"But if they're ancient history, why are we talking about it now?" Naruto demanded, though Kakashi could see his face was already beginning to understand.

"They _were_ ancient history." Asuka decided to interrupt, drawing eyes back to her as she delicately pressed out an invisible wrinkle on her dress. "Until I attempted to marry a young lord in the land of Cloud and discovered that the old Uzumaki clan heads had forced certain…safeguards onto their descendants. These contracts were found in vaults I didn't even know existed until Kumeda returned to our ancestral home after my engagement was broken off." She said in a sad voice, though her use of the word 'our' as a reminder that she and Naruto were connected somehow was not lost on the room. Though Sasuke had seemingly relaxed into a stance of bored apathy, Kakashi was sure that he could hear the other man's irritation boiling over, even as the Uchiha tried to keep a lid on it.

Why was he so angry? Kakashi wondered. He expected Sasuke to be concerned, sure, just like Kakashi himself was worrying, and to be a little aggravated perhaps, because Naruto was probably the only real friend the Uchiha had. But the murderous intent the raven was just barely keeping under wraps was very clear to his old mentor, if no one else, and it was making the silver-haired Jounin wonder what could possibly be causing it. Perhaps it was because Naruto was the only person in the world that Sasuke truly trusted? Perhaps because he felt the jinchuriki was the only person he still cared about?

But then why had he only just started giving a shit now?

The pieces just weren't adding up. Kakashi filed the knowledge away for later as Naruto stormed up to Tsunade's desk to see the seals in question.

They were laid out rather unobtrusively, appearing completely harmless, and certainly not seeming as if they could so suddenly turn the blonde's world upside down. Kakashi had already read and memorized them, and could mentally picture what Naruto was reading in his head.

"... _In the case that the clan's numbers have been drastically reduced, and the potential for procreation and preserving our ability as hosts for the Kyuubi fail, our descendants will be bound in marriage to preserve our genetic predisposition as hosts to the nine-tailed fox. This binding is void only if the remaining descendants are full blooded siblings, but any other relation must marry each other, and no others, to preserve the blood of the clan and ensure the continuation of a vessel to hold the Kyuubi. Uzumaki Haruna and Uzumaki Ichiro, clan heads of the Uzumaki, do sign this seal and bind it in their blood in the year 504._ "

What was left of the scroll was an elaborate twist of kanji and esoteric, ancient symbols that even Tsunade had admitted to forgetting existed.

"504…but this was almost 500 years ago!" Naruto demanded, stepping back to face both the Hokage and the seemingly modest Asuka, who clasped her hands in front of her as she spoke.

"I know, I am from a distant branch relation of the clan, I was not even aware I was an Uzumaki through my mother's side until after she died. I had to take the clan name once my father's family disowned me for not being able to uphold my marriage to Lord Hideyama."

"Why weren't you able to marry him? This can't actually have power over us, our blood's 500 years away from these guys." Naruto asked, his voice hardening as he tried to reign in his infamous temper. Kakashi watched the blonde carefully. If there was one thing Naruto hated, it was being forced to do something he didn't want to do.

Asuka bit her lip and looked to her guard as if for support. The bland man gave her a slight nod, which told the copy nin even more about their strange relationship that he took note of for later before the woman continued.

"As the wedding ceremony began, I felt very dizzy, and it quickly became difficult for me stand. My family attributed it to my being a lady, but I had never been prone to fainting before. As the priest tried to bind me and the Lord Hideyama together, I began to get feel quite hot, and I turned redder and redder, as if my blood was boiling in my very skin…"

She swallowed, clearly suppressing a shudder. "But I continued to finish the ceremony, until they tried to say the final chants and I—and I—" Her hands trembled and she inhaled deeply.

"I'll never forget it, the feeling of my blood seeping from my pores, coming from my eyes, pooling in my mouth. It threatened to overwhelm me, and I fainted immediately. Thankfully, that halted the priests and I was taken from the ceremony, which stopped the bleeding from killing me, though I was still unconscious for days. When I awoke, the doctors couldn't tell my family what was wrong. They tried to arrange the ceremony again of course, but the same sensations happened, and when I ran from the altar before the blood began to come again, it reminded my father about my mother's family. They thought my illness might be a strange thing from my distant ties to a shinobi clan. He sent Kumeda there and he was the one who discovered the seals in an ancient crypt of the Uzumaki clan in what used to be the land of Whirlpools." She said, gesturing to the carefully blank-faced man beside her.

"My family disowned me, because then my half-sister could marry the Lord in my place. It was a lovely ceremony." Asuka smiled bitterly. "Of course, my father offered to provide for me still, as a daughter of his first wife, but I knew it would be a half life, shut away from the rest of my world as their shame, withering until I died. So instead I took the scroll and searched for anyone that had a relation to the Uzumaki clan—though I didn't have to search for long. Your name is already quite famous Naruto."

Even Kakashi didn't like the familiarity with which she said Naruto's name, and he didn't think anyone else in the room did either, save for the blonde, who didn't seem to notice it as he absorbed her story. The copy-nin could see the guilt already worming its way into the jinchuriki's heart at the tale, Naruto's hero-complex kicking in to try and save the woman, not even realizing what the discovery of the seals meant for _him_.

"I can only presume you haven't tried to marry yet, which is why you were unaware of the contract and the effect it would have on you." Asuka said, still sounding sad and lost. "I hope there isn't someone that you have already promised yourself too—"

"What if there is?" Naruto asked, turning back to Tsunade. Kakashi knew his mind was on Hyuuga Hinata, whom he had tentatively kissed by the ramen stand last week—the gossip from that was currently the talk of all Konoha.

"Naruto, what Asuka described could very easily happen to you if you tried to—"

"Tried to what, marry someone else? What does that mean then? I have to—" He stopped as everything began to click in his head.

"But we're cousins!" He exclaimed as that puzzle piece fell into place. "We can't marry, that would be so _weird_ and—"

"Naruto, the entire reason you have to marry is _because_ you're related. And according to Asuka's family tree, which she has so graciously provided, you're only fourth cousins at best, much better then if she had been a closer relation. By all laws, you could marry her without any problem, so-"

"So I have to marry her?" Naruto asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. Though he didn't say "her" with any particular malice, Asuka could clearly sense his disappointment, and wilted like a flower. Naruto saw it happen and instantly tried to perk back up.

"Not that it would be a bad thing, and I'm sure you're great! But I—I always thought—"

"You always thought you would more have a say in your life." Tsunade finished. "And you should Naruto." She said firmly. "I promise both of you that I will do everything in my power to break these seals so that you can be free to marry whomever you like." The blonde perked up a bit then, and even Asuka's eyes seemed to glitter with a faint hope. Her bodyguard remained stoic, to the degree that Kakashi wanted to prod at him to make sure the man _wasn't_ a statue.

"Until then though, I think it would be best if we prepared for the worst case scenario." Tsunade stated, again ignoring Asuka's hurt look. Well, that was to be expected, Kakashi mused. She was probably born into a noble clan that had gotten some shinobi blood a few centuries back to cement an alliance and raise their own power. Most likely, she had been told her whole life her one duty was to be married to a rich snot and produce his children to cement another alliance. Now for her one valid chance at succeeding in this life long goal ruined, her entire contract to the next man she had to marry was being treated so callously, she must've felt very undesirable and unwanted, a complete failure in regards to her upbringing.

But she didn't understand the way the shinobi world worked. It was so different. Marriages between ninja were hard things; one never knew when one's partner would go on a mission and never come back. And their children were also expected to be shinobi, passing on powerful fighting skills and bloodline limits. The future Hokage's whole family was almost certainly expected to be powerful ninjas; rumors had already started about Naruto beginning his own dynasty of new Kages for Konoha, much like the Senju clan before him. It was why civilians never married into shinobi life, and why shinobi never really married out of it.

Because a partner who had never killed more than a chicken in their lives could never understand the mental anguish or guilt for having to slaughter a squadron of young, bright faced genin, just because there was a war on between their countries and they were completing a foolish mission they were told was essential to their cause. That partner couldn't hold you and tell you that the grief of losing your teammates would pass, because they would have never experienced it themselves. They couldn't possibly understand it, the sadness, the anger, the _fear_ that could eat away at you, night after night, haunted by the dead and the mistakes you had made. That partner would never have the same power as you, would never be your equal, and you would be afraid of that weakness of your entire life.

"Have you checked to make sure the scrolls are even real?" Sasuke's voice was like dilapidated velvet, shattering the awkward silence of the room. Naruto was clearly still to wrap his mind about the "worst case scenario:" that he would have to marry a distant cousin he didn't even know and be forced to have children with her, just because some long dead family members signed a contract in blood 500 years ago. The blonde was so still it was almost unnerving, especially because it was _Naruto_ , who was always moving or talking or doing something.

"I've verified the age of the contract and the seal. It's quite powerful, particularly because it hadn't been activated until Asuka's recent attempt at marriage, so it's almost the same as the day it was made. Then again, considering how spread out the Uzumakis have been since Uzushiogakure was destroyed, it's surprising that Naruto and Asuka really are the only two left." Tsunade said, bringing another unspoken question to light. Kakashi agreed. The whole scenario just seemed a tad too convenient. A strange, distant and virtually unknown family member coming from a far off land to marry the vessel of the nine-tailed fox—now of all times?

"There may be more Uzumakis." Asuka admitted. "But if there are, they are either too young, too old, or they're simply unable to fulfill the contract, which is why it activated. I have funded an extensive search across the continent, and I truly believe that Naruto and I are must be the only ones with the ability to continue on the clan line, which is why it is so focused on us."

"Focused on you at least." Sasuke said dismissively.

"This isn't a joking matter Uchiha." Tsunade reprimanded, though Kakashi could tell how shaken up she was by Naruto's uncharacteristic silence as the blonde jinchuriki kept reading the scroll, his eyes roving over the marks of the seal over and over again.

"It may have already started." The Hokage sighed, her hands clenching as she considered it and the young man she loved as her own grandson.

"What might have already started?" Naruto finally asked, looking back up from the scroll to meet Tsunade's pained expression.

"Old blood contracts can also sometimes have time limits once they've been activated. Because it was activated a month ago by the attempted wedding, the seal might have already begun a process that will hurt you and Asuka if you don't get married, and soon. These sort of fail-safes were often built into these old contracts so that clan members couldn't avoid their responsibilities by pushing them off for an unnamed 'some day.' We must be prepared for that to happen to you both."

Asuka paled at the statement, clearly thinking back to the blood on her wedding day. "Naruto, I—" The noblewoman began, but Naruto, whose hands were clenched on either side of Tsunade's desk, shook his head abruptly, making her fall into silence. Kakashi could feel his chakra the same way he felt Sasuke's earlier, and the man was clearly struggling to keep his control. The copy nin could only imagine what it had to feel like, being trapped by another seal he didn't want. His life being controlled by outside forces, _again_.

Naruto's body wavered, and with a flash, he was gone, leaving nothing but the ozone smell of powerful chakra behind him. He was probably off to destroy something…large. Or potentially put himself in a life threatening situation. Kakashi sighed, finally closing his book and tucking it into its designated pocket in his pants. His charcoal colored eye settled on the strange woman who looked increasingly distressed at seeing her potential fiancée vanish into thin air.

"Don't worry Asuka, Naruto just needs time to…adjust. Though I'm sure Hokage-sama will certainly find a way to break the contract." He said with a forced cheerfulness that sounded false, even to him. The woman nodded her pretty head despondently, understanding what everyone in the room had left unsaid.

"I'll go after him." Kakashi said, moving to vanish after the blonde before he was stopped by another look from Sasuke.

"No, I will." The Uchiha said stiffly, moving to flicker off himself.

"Sasuke—" Kakashi stopped himself from reminding his former student that going after Naruto when he was in an unstable state was _not_ a good idea, mainly because Asuka was listening with clear-eyed interest, and some part of Kakashi didn't want her to know that Naruto was vulnerable. Though it might've already been too late for that.

"Do _you_ really want to be there right now?" Sasuke asked, his tone conveying the likeliness of Naruto wanting to beat the shit out of the nearest thing—or person—that he could find. And as much as Kakashi loathed to admit it, Sasuke was the only person besides himself who was even remotely able to handle the full brunt of the kyuubi-vessel's rage. And if he thought about it himself, he really didn't want to be the blonde's punching bag. He was getting too old for that.

He gave an imperceptible nod, and the raven was gone in a gust of wind and a wave of electricity that hissed through the air. Which once again brought Kakashi back to the predicament that was bothering him earlier. Sasuke used to give what was quantifiably a _negative_ amount of shit when it came to Naruto's problems for years. And now he was volunteering to be the first one to help the blonde? Sure, the Uchiha had mellowed out a lot since returning to Konoha, but that had come in the form of distant aloofness, reserved from almost everyone, the fire that had burned in him for so long dampened by the sheer normalcy and dullness of what his life was now.

At least, that had been the case until this morning, Kakashi realized. That's why the copy-nin almost didn't catch it at first. Sasuke's pent up rage had been such an integral part of the last Uchiha for so long that his old mentor had almost forgotten that the raven haired shinobi had only been half as broody as he used to be since he had come back to Konoha. But now he was once again reining that signature fire back within himself. And he was angry for _Naruto's_ sake.

That would take some consideration indeed.

"-will make sure you're adequately provided for during your stay here." Tsunade was saying to the worried Asuka and stone-faced Kumeda as Kakashi tuned back into the conversation at hand. Shizune had entered while he was thinking, and quickly escorted the two out at their dismissal. Asuka left with a deep bow, probably trying to make a good impression to the leader of a world she was woefully out of place in. Tsunade gave a soft nod back, but once they were gone, the Hokage finally slumped to her desk in something that was close to defeat.

"We're really in for it now." She said softly, staring at the scrolls with loathing. Kakashi wisely remained silent, even as Tsunade's hand reached into one of the draws by her desk and withdrew a large bottle of sake and a pair of glasses.

"Drink?" She offered. Kakashi shook his head with wistful sigh.

"I probably should go and make sure my students aren't destroying an important part of Konoha." He said casually, as if preventing village ruin by two of the most powerful shinobi in the Fire Nation was something people did every day. Tsunade rolled her eyes.

"Yes, you probable should. A piece of me wants to send Naruto on the most complex mission I can get my hands on, to take his mind off this. But now I'm afraid to let him out of my sight."

"It might be a good idea anyway, if you kept him close enough to get back in an emergency." Kakashi said, thinking that Naruto probably could do to blow off some steam. He had been in the village for close to sixth months already, preparing to take the mantle of Hokage when Tsunade stepped down at the end of the year. But now, all of that would have to wait.

Kakashi knew as well as Tsunade did that if there was a blood seal for marriage, there might be a host of other unpleasant seals and contracts that could hold power over Naruto buried in the strange Uzumaki crypt in the ruins of Uzushiogakure that Asuka had mentioned. And those seals might put Konoha in jeopardy if they were used against their Hokage to control him. Tsunade would have to continue to bear the yoke of leadership until the entire matter was resolved. Or she would forcibly pass it to Kakashi, which was the last thing he wanted at the moment. He was enjoying the fact that his life was finally becoming normal again, no massive criminal organizations to take down or wars to prevent. He liked it that way.

"Either way, I want you to organize an investigation the Lady Asuka." Tsunade continued. "This all just seems too convenient. I want to make sure this is simply the case of a girl stumbling into blood history too old for her to properly understand, and not something…else." The unspoken implication of what "else" could mean lingered in the room: another attempt on Naruto's life, or a rival village's method to try and gain control of the Kyuubi.

"But find those two idiots first and calm Naruto down. Grab Tenzou if you need help." She said with a wave of her hand, dismissing him.

Kakashi immediately vanished himself back to the bottom floor of the tower, thinking about where to look first, when his nose caught a familiar floral scent in the air, and his wandering eye saw a flash of pink disappearing into the stairwell.

"Yo." He called out, and he knew Sakura heard, her steps halting before she turned around and popped back outside the door with a strange smile that didn't reach her eyes. Kakashi didn't put much weight on the odd tightness of her lips, once more attributing it to how hard she was working herself.

The girl never stopped, even finding time in her schedule to randomly show up at his house and bully him into a home check up. He took to Doctor's visits about the same way dogs took to vets, though Sakura was the only one he actually let poke and prod at him, and only because of some clearly misplaced loyalty to the kunoichi. In fact, the last time she had determinedly been checking his blood pressure, he had tried to return the favor by advising her to take more time for herself, but that had just earned him a hard glare and a lecture and a lot more jabbing during his check up then he liked, so he had dropped the subject.

But seeing her now, dangerously pale and clearly stressed out, Kakashi was almost tempted to take up the banner again for the sake of her health.

"Did you see Sasuke and Naruto?" he asked, wondering if they had teleported directly to the training grounds or to the bottom of the tower like him to save their energy. Though he was sure that both weren't half as lazy as he was, and Naruto was clearly too angry to be thinking about conserving any of his incredibly large reserves of chakra, it never hurt to ask. They might've gone a different direction, and he would be none the wiser.

Sakura blanched, as if he had asked her a far more perverse question.

"S-seen them? What do you mean? I wasn't spying!" She sputtered, and Kakashi raised a lone silver eyebrow. Maybe she _was_ working too hard. She looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown.

"They didn't pass by you just now? Naruto got some bad news, and he hasn't taken it too well." He said, again thinking back to how quiet Naruto had been. No outburst, no inflamed ranting. The silence was actually even more worrying, since it indicated that the contract bothered him a whole lot more then the blonde let on.

"Bad news? What bad news?" Sakura asked, her expression shifting to genuine concern.

"A marriage contract." Kakashi said in a bland tone, though he knew the kunoichi in front of him would pick up the edge in his voice. Sakura was a bookworm by nature, and smart enough to immediately understand the implications of such a document existing.

"For Naruto?" She asked, her jade green eyes widening in wonder. "How did—"

"Ancient blood seal from the Uzumaki clan. Made to prevent their line from dying out. Naruto and some noblewoman from Cloud are the only ones left to fulfill the terms." He said, still trying to wrap his own mind around it himself as Sakura's pink lips parted in shock.

"That's—that's—"

"A little too convenient, I think." Kakashi mused, turning back to glance at his book. The next chapter was one of his favorites, he realized, and he probably wasn't going to even get the chance to read it until tomorrow.

"I think that maybe you and I should do a little investigating." He said, nonchalantly turning a page, and Sakura's gaze caught a steely glimmer as she quickly picked up his meaning.

"Did you get the mission from Tsunade-shisou? I'll tell Sai." She said, her fingers closing in a determined fist.

"We've got clearance." Kakashi replied, turning back to her with a smile that made his eyelid crinkle upwards. "But I have to find Naruto and Sasuke before they do something to each other."

Sakura paled again at his words, once again not able to form a coherent response as she sputtered the same way Hyuuga Hinata used to, if Kakashi remembered correctly. Very unlike the usually composed and controlled Sakura he knew.

"D-do something? Do what? Not do- _ing_ —not—" She stopped herself as her former mentor looked at her with the full weight of his stare.

"Sakura, is there something you want to tell me?" He asked, quite serious despite his cheerful tone. The medic shook her head, a little too vigorously.

"No Kaka-sensei—let's just go find them." She murmured, and formed a quick hand seal that allowed her to vanish from his sight, but leaving a clear chakra trail behind for him to follow. Kakashi sighed and did so, his mind still wondering about the strange turn of events from that morning.

His dear students were hiding things from him, he thought, though that only upset him a little. Only Kami knew why they suddenly decided that he was untrustworthy. But he could just turn this into a _learning experience_ , the teacher in him reasoned. They would certainly thank him for helping once he figured out why they were all behaving so strangely.

Whistling to himself, he followed Sakura at a leisurely pace, even as his keen ears heard the sound of a faint thundering boom of disproportionate power in the distance. The earth trembled a little beneath his sandals, sending pebbles skittering down the street and causing some heads to poke out of windows on Konoha's main street.

With a sigh, Kakashi began to move a little faster. He would be the one blamed if they actually blew something up _. Students._

Distracted by his thoughts and the curious civilian stares before he flickered away, even the great copy-nin Kakashi didn't notice that extra of the pair of the eyes he felt glancing at him from the windows belonged to someone who was following his every moment, irises spinning in golden rings around pitch black pupils before ominously fading back into darkness.

* * *

 **Thank you so much for your wonderfully passionate and detailed reviews, they were such a help and inspiration to write and edit through the next chapter so quickly! I read every one with a smile on my face, and take the comments into consideration as I write. If you have any questions that I don't answer in a subsequent chapter, I will always try to answer them in the notes:) You guys are great~**

 **I enjoy writing Kakashi as a light hearted character, though some of my favorite works are of him being portrayed in a more serious light. We'll see if I get there as this story develops and gets considerably darker.**

 **Let me know what you think about this chapter/the major plot twist I've introduced. Questions, comments, concerns? If there are any major discrepancies or issues, I can fix that too, though I know this world is very clearly going AU, I promise more characters will be making an appearance soon! And next chapter we will finally get to see the world through Naruto's perspective.**

 **(Also, I did not forget about Karin being Uzumaki, she comes into play very soon!)**

 **Thanks for your feedback!**

 **;) -Prosely**


	3. Outlying Factors

**Chapter 3: Outlying Factors**

* * *

Naruto paced in a clearing surrounded by colossal trees; ignoring the remnants of the first one he had already smashed into the splinters that littered the forest floor around him. As long as they were just trees, Tenzou could fix it later, he thought, a little vindictively, his hands flexing as his mind replayed what had happened in the Hokage's office over and over again.

A marriage contract? Blood seals binding him to the will of long dead clansmen? Naruto had been rather sure that he had seen the worst the shinobi world had to throw at him, but this was so mundane it was almost painful. He was going to be trapped, again.

Trapped in a _marriage_.

The thought made him throw another punch into a tree, a ringing thunder rumbling out from the forest as he did so. He wasn't as strong as Sakura, who would've easily shattered the massive pine with one blow, but his raw fury caused a considerable fissure in the wood, cracking its way up the entire trunk and forming a large crater in the center. He could feel the Kyuubi chakra waking up inside him, tasting his anger and enjoying the way it made his blood boil. Though he had a far greater control over Kurama now then when he was younger, and was perfectly capable to smothering the dark fire that was blooming beneath his skin, a large part of Naruto didn't want to, even as he felt the fox growl a soft warning in his head.

" _Don't do anything foolish…_ "

Naruto ignored it. He _wanted_ to be angry; he wanted to feed the deep-set frustration and use the power he usually only saved for when he was particularly desperate. He wanted to _hurt_ something.

And that's what scared him. That's what made him leave the Hokage's office so suddenly. He had only felt the desire to physically hurt something or someone without any justification less then a handful of times in his life, and he needed time to get in control of his emotions.

He knew in a few hours he would be able to slap a smile on and make the best of the situation, but first, he wanted to let go and just _be angry_ for once, without giving two shits about the repercussions. He wanted to be the monster that the village had always accused him of being, he wanted to give voice to his rage at fate and the world because he was so damn _close_ to achieving his dreams and it just couldn't be that easy, could it?

His eyes opened as he felt the red energy welling up in his un-used palm. With a hoarse yell, he used it to strike the same abused trunk again, now feeling the kyuubi's exhilarating chakra throbbing in his blood, that exhilarating dark rage feeding on his own fury.

The tree cracked in half, shattering with a wooden scream as crimson rippled in the trunk, hissing as it burned swirling trails of fire across its face and causing the earth itself to tremble.

Naruto's sky-blue eyes narrowed. That hadn't felt half as gratifying as he had expected. He turned to try something different on the next tree, only to find that Sasuke had finally caught up to him.

The raven-haired man was casually leaning against the solid wood of what Naruto had intended to be his next target, dark eyes following the blonde's every move, not seeming remotely impressed with the destruction that was scattered about the clearing. The Uchiha's chakra was masked behind a façade of nonchalance, his elegant face impassive as he met his rival's glare.

His indifference was even more infuriating then usual to Naruto, whose nostrils flared as he again tasted the storm that lingered in the air around his rival.

"Move." Then jinchuriki said threateningly, still trying to keep his own composure. The last thing he wanted was for Sasuke to mock him about this.

"This is stupid." The Uchiha said, tactfully not calling Naruto a moron outright. Not yet at least. Naruto suppressed a growl as he decided that trying to hit the tree Sasuke was next to just wasn't worth it. He stalked past the raven, knowing he shouldn't give into his anger when the Uchiha was around. He'd just meditate until he was in better control again.

Frustrated, he slammed his palms together, crinkled his nose, and tried to clear his mind with deep, cleansing breaths.

"You really think that will help?" Sasuke asked, a note of disbelief in his voice that felt like a sharp blade shoved into Naruto's concentration. The blonde whirled around, feeling the kyuubi chakra flare up again. He knew he had to get a grip, but arguing with Sasuke was stupidly easy and he just wanted to _fight_ someone, even though he knew his self-control was wearing so thin he could feel his anger bubbling in his throat like something alive.

"Why do you even care?" He growled. "Not like it's your problem. Kami forbid anyone should ask Uchiha Sasuke to do anything he didn't want to." Sasuke's eyes hardened at the remark, and Naruto could see the red flickering beneath them, threatening to spill fourth past his rival's usually impeccable self-control—and some part of the blonde felt a dark thrill from the increased tension building in the air. He liked that he was the only person who was able to still get such a rise out of his old teammate. He wanted to piss Sasuke off—he _wanted_ someone to be as angry as he was.

"Watch it moron." Sasuke said, his voice taking that velvety soft edge again, no longer considering tactfulness.

"Why should I? Whatcha gonna do about it Sasuke? Run away?" Naruto demanded, voicing all of the things that people had been whispering about the Uchiha ever since he returned. Everyone knew that the only reason the council even allowed it, despite Sasuke's help in ending the last war, was because of the sharingan. They couldn't afford Sasuke procreating anywhere else. They couldn't risk any other village getting an Uchiha of their own. He knew it got under Sasuke's skin, as much as the raven tried to play it off as nothing—but the man hated it, loathed it. To have it thrown up in his face was asking for an ass-kicking.

Sometimes Naruto wondered why his rival was still here, why he hadn't vanished into the night again. Maybe it was only because Sasuke was always given long-term missions away from Konoha that kept him distracted, or perhaps because of some misplaced loyalty to a certain blonde friend who was currently edging him on.

"Don't try to make this about me." Sasuke hissed, his body flickering right next to where Naruto was standing as the kyuubi vessel considered the next trunk in front of him. The Uchiha slowly, deliberately, stretched a long, lithely muscled arm out to block Naruto's view of the tree, effectively drawing the jinchuriki's glare as the blonde snorted.

He knew as well as Sasuke did that he wasn't actually angry with the Uchiha, but he didn't care.

Sasuke always acted so indifferent to the world, like nothing ever bothered him. What would he do if he were trapped in a marriage contract? Naruto wondered.

 _Probably kill the other person involved to get out of it_. He realized darkly as Sasuke's eyes met his and held his gaze for a long, terrible moment. But that wasn't even an option he would begin to consider he thought, looking away, as if something on the tree bark was far more interesting to him at the moment. Asuka was innocent, and she certainly didn't deserve it, no matter how much it sucked for Naruto to have another part of his life controlled by outside forces.

Sasuke, on his part, seemed to be mentally trying to reign in his own temper, though it was clearly growing increasingly difficult for him as he met Naruto's gaze head on. Both dared the other to look away first. Neither did.

"Whatever you say, bastard." Naruto muttered, feeling the hair beginning to rise on his arms from the sheer intensity of their staring contest.

Sasuke's eyes weren't black, like everyone said, but the darkest shade of grey that Naruto had ever seen. They looked like the dying embers of a fire, still radiating heat, even though the flames had been banked for now. Those eyes burned, and as much as they were the Uchiha's greatest strength, they were also his greatest weakness—Naruto could see all of Sasuke's emotions there, as if they were written on the page of a book, though that was probably because the blonde was the only person the Uchiha had made a habit of getting into staring contests with.

The kyuubi vessel could see how little it would take to send the man with those burning eyes over the edge. Sasuke knew it too, and waited for what they both knew the blonde was going to say to get what he wanted.

"We both know it always has to be about you." Naruto's voice was a low, guttural sound, intimating the challenge he knew Sasuke was going to take.

A flashing katana went for his neck, and Naruto stopped it with two electricity-retarding Kunai, twisting around and forcing the lightning enhanced blade deep into the tree that was now behind his back. Sasuke was suddenly in front of him, pressing him into the base of the trunk, every muscle on edge as their bodies pulsed in mutual anger and adrenaline. Naruto felt his breath already deepening, his stance shifting to retaliate.

Something dark shifted in the Uchiha's eyes for the split second that they were frozen. The man's hands went still on the handle of his long sword. But before Naruto could figure out what it was that made the raven pause, Sasuke had vanished away, clearly trying to get a better vantage point before attempting to retrieve his blade.

This Naruto could handle. There was something so familiar about fighting Sasuke that it was soothing—almost therapeutic.

He didn't reflect on how his considering beating the absolute shit out of each other a type of therapy was actually more of an indicator that he maybe needed a real psychological evaluation, but as Sasuke appeared behind him with that sound of lightning cracking through in the air, Naruto really didn't care.

The Uchiha was on him in another flash, his eyes melting to vermillion, filled with a riveting tension that Naruto couldn't quite place. Usually Sasuke had two modes when fighting—indifferent or pissed off. But this was something different; Naruto thought as he blocked a double kick to his chest and flipped backwards to avoid the roundhouse that he knew would follow. This was something else in Sasuke's glare that was making him acutely nervous. Something there reminded him of when he stared into Madara's eyes, something even more rapacious then usual.

As he summoned about fifty clones clones and Sasuke did the seals for a massive katon fireball, he tried to think about when it started—when he started to feel the raven's gaze following his every movement, even when they weren't fighting. Had it been since he returned to Konoha? Or from a time even before that?

 _"Sasuke's an Uchiha."_ He could Kakashi's voice saying from a distant memory, when they on one of their missions to bring Sasuke back, camped out in some cave in Rock country. _"Their clan has always been one driven by strong emotions, of passion and hate in equal measure—it's why they have the abilities they do. They can't even activate higher levels of their sharingan unless they've experienced great loss and pain. They're almost entirely driven by those emotions—it's why Sasuke has become as powerful as he has."_

 _"But then what happens when he comes back? What happens when he gets his revenge and suddenly it's all over?"_ Naruto demanded, still unrelentingly assured that his best friend _would_ come back, even if he had to drag him by his chicken butt hair. Kakashi's lone eye hardened as he stared into the fire, sighing.

 _"I don't know Naruto."_ He said softly, and Naruto worried that he had never seen such a distant look on his former sensei's face. _"I really don't know."_

Naruto was brought back to reality by the sensation of Sasuke's foot against his chest, throwing him back into a tree. He did a substitution jutsu at the last minute, so a clone exploded against the trunk instead of him, and flickered up into the tree behind the raven as another three clones tried to get their own punches in before Sasuke annihilated them in a full body chidori that incinerated the ground within a five meter radius, sending the smell of scorched earth wafting to Naruto's nose.

Red eyes flashed up at the branch line and found him almost immediately. Naruto waved at his rival with a grin, a moment before another clone erupted from the ground beneath Sasuke's feet to nail him in the jaw—

Only to have a kunai shoved through his skull. The clone let out a shrill yell and vanished with a pop. _Damnit._ Naruto thought. He really did underestimate how fast the Uchiha was sometimes.

The blonde jumped back down, falling into a taijutsu stance as Sasuke gave a tug on his katana, pulling it back out of the tree he had lodged it in earlier. Naruto's smile hadn't left his face as he felt his muscles tense up in readiness for Sasuke's next attack. He _was_ feeling better already.

"What's the matter bastard, getting tired?" He asked mockingly, and Sasuke scoffed in response. "You wish, moron."

Then they were at it again, still not using the full arsenal of their powers because even in the Forest of Death, it would most likely cause a large crater in the earth and some damage that not even Tenzou could repair.

But Naruto lived for moments like this, where he could forget everything else but the adrenaline singing through his veins; where there was nothing the need to react and move in time to respond to every move of Sasuke's, to have nothing in his world but _Sasuke_ , his entire universe revolving around reacting to whatever the other man did next—

Naruto paused at the thought, realizing how strange it sounded, even in his head, and the mental break lasted just long enough for Sasuke's katana to slide through his hands and run through his shoulder. By the fractionally increased glare coming from the swirling eyes that met his own, Sasuke had clearly thought he was going to block it. Naruto had too.

He stumbled back and Sasuke immediately withdrew as Naruto felt the Kyuubi's chakra already at work knitting the muscles back together, though at a much slower pace then usual, because something about Sasuke's sword always made it heal more lethargically. Naruto blamed the lightning affinity, even as he snarled back up at the man, who was watching him with that same, unreadable expression.

Somehow, the entire situation pissed the jinchuriki off even more. What was wrong with him—he couldn't even fend off a typical stab from the man he had been fighting for the better part of his life? Was he really this upset by a stupid insignificant contract? But if it was so insignificant, why was the whole idea of it making him so angry?

He could feel his eyes turning red, the whiskers in his face deepening as he leapt forward again with a growl. He was Uzumaki Naruto. He wouldn't be beaten by Kurama's wild chakra, he wouldn't be controlled by a marriage contract, and he would certainly not get his ass kicked by Uchiha Sasuke.

There was a more desperate edge in their fighting as they clashed again, Naruto fighting for a dominance and control for something in his life, and Sasuke refusing to let him have it, making him work to gain even a moment's advantage.

Until suddenly—and Naruto wasn't sure if he managed to trip the man, or if Sasuke had fallen backwards on purpose to flip away from him, but suddenly they were tumbling and not using any ninja arts at all, but just blatantly trying to beat the shit out of each other. Naruto found himself straddling the other Uchiha as he kept throwing punches at Sasuke's face, which were blocked as Sasuke tried to elbow him in the chest, a knee digging wildly into a tan back. Naruto swung again, and missed as the raven moved his head to the side, sending the jinchuriki's fist crashing into the ground with a thud. The blonde's free hand was caught in an iron grip as Sasuke moved to flip him over so that he would be the one in control.

"No you don't!" Naruto snarled, and felt the wild chakra again, slithering through his veins as he grabbed Sasuke's wrists and pinned them down beside him with an unnatural strength, feeling all his anger, all of his rage channeled down into that one moment. He wanted to hurt Sasuke. He wanted to hurt him and make him feel the same sort of anger and pain Naruto was. He wanted Sasuke's anger back, his passion, he wanted—

He certainly didn't want the blank face that was now looking up at him with complete apathy.

When had that happened? Where was the fire that was lit in his rival's eyes moment ago—why was it gone—why was Sasuke suddenly so cold?

"What's your problem?" Naruto demanded, that dark and incensed part of him feeling cheated and even more enraged. Beating his rival in a fight wasn't worth it if the raven had stopped fighting back.

"Tch." Sasuke scoffed, his expression unreadable. "You're an idiot."

His head snapped to the side with a loud crack as Naruto's fist lashed out in a reflex response, every inch of his rage slamming into the side of the Uchiha's face. Feeling his knuckles bruising his rival's cheek made Naruto even angrier. Sasuke wasn't even put in the effort to actually fight back! Another fist flew from the raven's suddenly weakened grip and flew down with another sickening crunch as Sasuke's head slammed against the earth.

Naruto's mind hadn't even processed what he'd done until he saw the vivid red of blood on the mossy forest floor, pooling from Sasuke's mouth as the man spat it out with a choked cough. The jinchuriki felt the fight leave his body as he stared at his rival's face, already swelling from the force of his blows. The raven's head slowly moved back up and furious eyes melted into the mangekyou sharingan. Now he was as livid as Naruto had wanted him before. But Naruto felt guilty about what he had done, and the rage that had been sustaining him just minutes ago had abandoned him the moment he realized he had actually managed to hurt Sasuke.

"Shit." Naruto yelped as he felt the pull into that alternate reality. He resisted, having fought it off before, retreating back into his own mind as he immediately pulled away from Sasuke's face, though he remained where he was, using his larger body and weight to keep the man pinned down. If he was being honest, he was afraid of what would happen if he let his rival up again.

He knew the punch was coming and blocked it instinctively, grabbing the Sasuke's fist and trying to force them down with arms that trembled from the effort, even as he avoided Sasuke's eyes, despite how much he wanted to look back up and see what was going through his rival's head.

They struggled for another long moment that was a battle of wills more than physical prowess, Sasuke finally using Naruto's distraction and loss of anger to hook his foot beneath the blonde's and flip them over so that suddenly he was on top, and Naruto found himself staring into those swirling, crimson eyes, his rival's bloodied mouth determinedly set in a thin line.

"The contract is fake, you moron."

Sasuke said in a steely voice, his face suddenly much closer then it had been in recent memory as he leaned in to do so. There was still blood on his rival's lips, and Naruto could taste the iron of it in the air, his enhanced senses screaming in bloodlust, wanting more, wanting to make the man who tried to challenge him _bleed_ -

Despite the internalized horror Naruto had for himself at the thought, he still couldn't seem to draw his eyes from it, the swath of red on the other man's skin. It looked so bright on the pale flesh of Sasuke's lips, as crimson as the eyes that swirled above his face.

He felt almost nauseous from the guilt at the sight—he couldn't believe he lost control like that, as if he was a kid again, unable to master his own rage or power. And there was something else too. Something he couldn't really define, but was making his heart pound again, waiting for Sasuke to retaliate—to hit him back. That same, strange and dark part of him that kept swirling in his gut realized he _wanted_ Sasuke to try and hurt him the same way. He wanted Sasuke to exert some sort of force over him, to fight again for the twisted sort of dominance they both seemed to be battling for.

But before he could another breath, the Uchiha's weight vanished, and the man was standing on the far side of the clearing again, gingerly running a hand over what was probably a dislocated jaw.

He turned to glare at Naruto again as the blonde turned his head to stare at him, which shook the kyuubi-vessel from his bizarre stupor. What the hell had that been about? Naruto wondered, before his brain finally started working again, processing what Sasuke had said to him.

"What do you mean it's fake?" He demanded, and saw the Uchiha visibly resist the urge to roll his eyes. Asshole.

"Karin." Sasuke replied simply, moving to finally unroll the coarse and bloody bandages he had wrapped around his fingers earlier that morning, when their first training session had started. That morning felt like a life-time ago. Naruto thought, even as his heart began to flutter with tentative hope.

* * *

The private rooms the Hokage had provided for Asuka and Kumeda were in the buildings designed to host dignitaries during their visits to Konoha. It was operated like a hotel, and the rooms weren't much different in its neutral cleanliness, with creamy silk sheets and soft pillows that Asuka had enjoyed lounging on when she arrived, before flouncing off to the public baths on the bottom floor and leaving her bodyguard to his own devices.

"-And how is our sweet apple?" A seemingly hoarse voice crackled over a radio sitting on the nondescript desk that Kumeda was sitting at. The man sighed into the microphone of the two-way receiver.

" _She's_ fine. The rest of this is a little worse then you predicted." The cloud shinobi responded into the speaker, tracing an old scratch into the wooden surface with a spare kunai he had been polishing up until a few minutes ago. "The kid didn't take the news too well, and I don't know about the seal holding up to close inspection from the Hokage."

"Leave worrying about the seal up to me." The voice said before pausing, though the bodyguard wasn't sure if it was because of the person on the other line was thinking, or just because of the sketchy connection. "And the Uchiha?"

Kumeda's kunai stilled. "Yeah. He showed up, like you said he would."

"Good." The person on the other end of the radio said, before chuckling. "Make sure you keep taking your medicine Kume."

Kumeda's eyes hardened at the remark, sliding slowly over to the pill-box that sat unobtrusively next to his bed.

"Just let me know when you get the other girl." The cloud shinobi replied coolly, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, which wasn't hard for him, as he was an impartial man to begin with.

"Don't worry, she'll be taken care of soon. Just focus on binding the kyuubi vessel for now. The Uchiha will be a minor nuisance, but he'll be taken care of soon enough."

"Understood." Kumeda said, turning the radio off once it was clear he wouldn't be receiving any further communication from whoever operated it on the other side.

Dutifully, he stood, cracked his back a few times, and moved to where the pillbox next to the bed. Sinking down into the mattress, the shinobi popped out two white tablets and swallowed them dry. After he did so, he pulled a thick rag from his flack jacket, methodically binding it around his head to muzzle his own mouth before he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes to wait with a deep sigh.

The rag was thicker then it looked, because no one below heard his muffled screams as the "medicine" worked its way through his system.

* * *

"Karin-" Naruto said her name in wonder, suddenly remembering. He couldn't believe he had forgotten her in the first place. "Karin!" He exclaimed, leaping to his feet. Sasuke apparently couldn't resist rolling his eyes that time, but Naruto didn't care.

"Karin is an Uzumaki, you're right! But what if—" the blonde hesitated, not wanting to say it. Sasuke had been close with the girl, travelling with her for some time. If she had died, he might even be a little upset.

"I doubt she's dead. She's survived more things then you have." The Uchiha deadpanned, clearly untroubled by it even as Naruto thought about what this new information might mean. It could be what saved him!

"We've gotta tell Kakashi."

Sasuke didn't seem to think that was as important by the loll of his head as he pulled off another bandage with his teeth, but Naruto didn't look like he would broker any arguments.

The blonde vanished in a flash, and Sasuke was left spitting out more blood from his mouth, hating certain idiots who forgot that others didn't have the ability to instantly heal from any injury, and who made Uchihas feel increasingly uncomfortable in their presence.

* * *

Unfortunately, the woman they had been discussing was running for her life even as they spoke her name.

"Damnit!" Karin muttered with a sneeze, leaping to another tree branch. She knew if she could just make it to the Fire Country's border, she would be safe. If she could just find the Hokage and explain what was going to happen—

A shuddering behind her made her leap again, even as she felt her skin begin to prickle and start redden, the melanin pooling to the top of her epidermis. She scoffed at it. Fear tactics, that's all it was. Blood seals and binding contracts of service? Please. She would believe that the moment she saw whales fly.

She felt the shinobi behind her stop when she halted on the next branch, clearly waiting to see her next move, watching her with calculating eyes.

She whirled around, deciding that enough was enough. She could only sense four chakras, and they didn't seem terribly strong—if she could at least get rid of them, she could definitely get to the border before more reinforcements caught up to her.

A piece of her knew that half of her bravado was from the fear that was steadily worming its way into her gut as her skin grew hotter, and not just from the heat of the afternoon sun.

"Alright you idiots, I'm tired of this cat and mouse game. Show yourselves!" She demanded, ignoring the sweat that was beginning to prickle down her spine.

Almost immediately, four dark clad shinobi appeared in front of her. They all wore white porcelain masks that hid their faces so that Karin couldn't see who they were or what village they belonged to. She quickly shifted into fighting stance, even as the ninja in front of her remained unmoving.

"Let's go!" She said, her anger making her feel even hotter. One of the men decided to leap for her at her goading, and she ducked beneath the blow, moving to counter him with a solid punch to the stomach before she let a handful of shuriken fly at the others. They dodged the weapons easily, but the man she had hit rolled backwards on the ground with a wince. Hah! That would teach them. They couldn't be more then chunin at best.

"Come on!" Karin crowed, waiting for them to rush her all at once. One of the faceless men turned to the one she could only guess was their leader—but it was hard to tell, since they all looked the same.

"How much longer do you think she has?" The man asked, and she almost ran at him in her rage. Who did he think she was, an invalid that couldn't hear him?

"What the hell are you on about? If you think you're going to take me, you'll have to kill me first! I'm going to get to Konoha, and I'm going to tell them about every—"

Her heart thundered in her chest, and the forest floor suddenly seemed to tilt out beneath her.

Karin had never been sick in her life. It was part of her ability, to never succumb to illness or disease. Thus, when all of a sudden she felt very, very dizzy for no reason, it threw her off balance, and she stumbled, falling to her knees.

"What are you—doing—" She asked, and the masks watched her impassively as she suddenly began to choke taste the tangy salt of her own blood coming up in her throat. She glanced down at her hands and saw a million pinpricks of red welling up beneath her skin, bubbling as if it was literally boiling out of her. She could feel her chakra frantically trying to fight whatever was overcoming her trying to heal her and save her, but it was impossible when her entire body was rebelling against it and succumbing to—what was this? Her vision began to blur red, and she could suddenly feel the heat against her cheeks, the ribbons of blood that had begun to stream from her eyes.

She couldn't even open her mouth to scream.

The group leader caught the red-haired kunoichi as she slumped to the ground in a dead faint, crimson pooling into the grassy earth around them. He quickly pulled out a large bandage, and began wrapping it over any part of her skin that was still bleeding with a skilled efficacy that betrayed long practice. Once he was finished, he shouldered her like a sack of grain, and nodded to the rest of his squad.

"Let's go." He said, and they vanished in a blink.

The Konoha Jonin squads that patrolled the ten kilometers surrounding their border stopped by the same clearing later for a break and didn't even see the bloodstains, for they had vanished as if they had never been.

* * *

 **Reviews are love! Can't wait to hear what you all think!**

 **-Prosely**


	4. The Plan

Chapter 4: The Plan

* * *

"Kakashi!"

Naruto appeared before the copy nin just as the man had arrived at the entrance of the forest of death. Sakura jumped down from the tree branch she had been perched on, scouting for her old teammates. She landed next to the jinchuriki, looking terribly relieved.

"Naruto! Kakashi told me what happened, I can't believe it! Don't worry, we'll—"

Naruto cut her off with an abrupt shake of his head. "The contract's a fake." He said, turning back to his old sensei. "We forgot about Karin, she would have something to do with this too. We have to find her and figure out what's going on!" He said.

Kakashi nodded thoughtfully, his masked face tilting to one side.

"Oh right, the red haired girl Sasuke used to travel around with." He said, and Sakura stiffened at the mention of the other woman, though the copy-nin pretended not to notice. There was clearly no loved lost between Sasuke's former admirers.

"That does change things. Unless she's dead of course." He mused, though Naruto only continued his emphatic head shaking.

"Sasuke doesn't think so. And I believe him." The blonde jinchuriki said. Kakashi could feel the crick in his neck now. Sasuke was offering his help without getting anything in return? This just got more interesting by the minute.

"Really? I didn't know he was so optimistic." He said, glancing around. "Where is Sasuke anyway?"

"Yo, dickless." Sai chose that moment to materialize, much to Naruto's chagrin as the blonde nervously glanced back at the direction the other shinobi came from. Sasuke didn't care much for his replacement on their team…and that was putting it lightly. Few things were as impressive as the Uchiha's control around Sai, because everyone just knew he was one mis-placed word away from a chidori laden punch through the artist's face.

"Hey Sai." The blonde said, putting up a hand to scratch the back of his hair. He was really hoping that Sakura and Kakashi hadn't told the ex-root agent about—

"Can you even get married without a penis?" Sai asked without so much as a blink. Naruto froze, his eye twitching as he resisted the urge to injure the other man himself. Thankfully, Sakura did it for him, though Sai dodged her fists at the last second.

"Can you not go for one minute without saying something disgusting?!" The pink haired kunoichi demanded, causing the artist to shrug.

"It was an honest question." Sai said, though he didn't sound like he was trying to defend himself at all.

"But no one's answered mine." Kakashi said. "Naruto, where's Sasuke? He said he was going to find you."

Naruto resumed scratching his head, suddenly looking distinctly guilty. Kakashi sighed. The future Rokudaime was clearly going to have to practice having a firmer grip on his emotions before he became Hokage. "He's coming, I promise!" The blonde said, a little too quickly. "He may have just gotten lost…"

"Sasuke? Lost?" Sakura's voice arched with her thinly veiled skepticism.

"It happens okay!"

"Or maybe you just bailed, moron." A dark voice said from the branches above them. They all glanced up to see Sasuke's shadowed form, a moment before the man flickered to materialize beside them. Sakura gasped as Kakashi sighed. At least the Uchiha could always be counted on for dramatic entrances.

"Sasuke, your face! What happened?!" The medic nin exclaimed, seeing the swelling around his cheekbone and now even more pronounced injury to his jaw. She immediately moved towards him, her hand glowing green.

"Training accident." Was all the raven said in response, shifting to give Sakura more access to his face as she reached to heal the broken bones and reduce the swelling. Kakashi's eye rolled over to Naruto, who was staring anywhere else but at his rival, looking acutely uncomfortable.

"I have to say I'm impressed Naruto. I don't think I've seen you manage to get a hit like that on Sasuke since you two were genin." Their old sensei remarked, thoroughly enjoying being on the receiving end of the Uchiha's glare. Naruto swallowed, shuffling his feet.

"No, it's like Sasuke said, it was an accident…" he muttered, just as Sakura was pulling away and admiring her handiwork. "There!" She said. "Good as new."

Sasuke ran a finger up the newly healed jawbone before taking two menacing steps towards the blonde.

Naruto closed his eyes as the man's fist came flying—but the crack of pain never came. Instead—

"OW! Did you just _flick_ me bastard?!" The blonde exclaimed. Kakashi and Sakura both rolled their eyes at their antics.

Some things never changed. Sakura jumped forward to hold Naruto back as the other man flailed against her to try and get another hit on Sasuke as the latter smirked at him defiantly. Sai watched the entire altercation with clear fascination, and Kakashi wondered what Gods he had angered in a past life. The copy nin cleared his throat, resisting the urge to just open his book and read until the fight played out. His team was his family, but that didn't mean he never got exasperated with their ability to cause chaos and destruction wherever they went.

"If you three are quite finished, I think we should discuss where to go from here." Kakashi said, unrolling a map from his pack on the ground in front of him. Naruto took a deep breath, as if resisting the temptation to fight with Sasuke again was a Herculean effort, and the rest of the team settled in to inspect the scroll.

"Tsunade gave my team: that means me, Sakura, and Sai, clearance to investigate what's going on with Asuka and the seals themselves. But she also wants to make sure there aren't any other potentially binding contracts on Naruto that could prove dangerous back in the crypt Asuka was talking about. Now that we have to find Karin too, it gives us a few different ways to split up our mission." He said, gesturing down towards a rocky part of the ocean off the coast of Fire Country.

"Here is what used to be the Land of Whirlpools, and within it, what used to be Uzushiogakure, or the Village Hidden in the Tides, before it was destroyed. The crypt that Kumeda found the seal in has to be there, because Uzushio used to be the home of the entire Uzumaki clan. Hopefully he'll be able to provide us with a little more information about the crypt's location." The copy nin said thoughtfully, before trailing his finger back up into the Land of Rice.

"Karin said she was going back to Sound after the war ended, and is most likely in one of Orochimaru's old bases, doing who knows what. We'll need to find her and bring her to Konoha to help sort this out. Lastly—" Now his hand moved to hover over the Land of Clouds.

"We'll have to get a team to go to Kumogakure and figure out how much of Lady Asuka's story holds water. Maybe one of the old rookie nine teams will be willing to do it—we'll need someone who's good at reconnaissance. I'll talk to Tsunade about it this afternoon, though I'm sure getting clearance won't be a problem at all." The copy nin said cheerfully.

Naruto pumped his fist into the air. "Yes! We'll definitely get to the bottom of it!" The blonde all but shouted, his happiness as contagious as his gloominess from earlier, before his cheer was cut off by a yelp.

"Ow! Bastard, did you just flick me again?!" Naruto demanded, whirling around- "-On my ass?!"

At least Sai at least had the dignity to look mollified.

"Oh no, that was me. It looked fun." The pale skinned artist said, unperturbed by the glares coming in his direction not just from Naruto, but a brooding Uchiha as well. Sasuke's lips tightened in a thin line, and his expression promising Sai a sort of pain the other man couldn't even begin to comprehend.

However, Naruto and Sakura were already in full blown hissy-fits, distracting the raven with his ranting to the artist about how he couldn't just "go around and flick people on their asses!" And apparently their yelling was distracting enough, because the Uchiha managed to stay silent.

Thank goodness for small blessings, Kakashi thought as they all turned to head back to the Hokage tower. Sasuke _really_ didn't like Sai.

* * *

"This is definitely going to be a problem." Tsunade said with a sigh, looking at the map as Kakashi relayed his proposal. Naruto's fist clenched, as if he was resisting the urge to slam it into the table.

"Why?!" The blonde demanded, clearly more at ease in the office now that the strange woman that he might have to marry was gone. That, and the fact that he was clinging to the hope that the entire contract was a sham had done plenty to lift his spirits.

"Because if we send you abroad and the seal activates, you might not be able to make it back in time before you're dead." She deadpanned, causing the mood of the room to drop a few notches.

"But if the seal isn't even real, it's not going to activate." Sakura pointed out, causing most of the heads in the room to nod, save for the Hokage's.

"No, I've had it verified to be a real seal that's somehow tied to the Uzumaki bloodline. Whether it is actually for marriage or something else, we just don't know what it will do, and I don't like the idea of sending Naruto away now with all of those unknown factors at play."

Kakashi's eyes trailed over the map again.

"Surely just sending him to the ruins of Uzushio won't be a problem. It's very close to Konoha, and who knows if there are even more blood seals protecting ancient documents in that crypt that only Naruto could get past _because_ he's an Uzumaki. That village was known for their fūinjutsu and their sealing techniques."

"Exactly, that's why I'm so worried about this one!" Tsunade said; pointing at the marriage contract still spread out in front of her. "I've already had our experts look at it, and if we even have a chance at unraveling it, Naruto should be here in case something goes wrong."

"This is within a three days journey from here! I could even bring a long distance teleportation scroll, and if anything does go wrong or I feel something weird happening, I'll come right back!" Naruto said, barely holding back the whine in his voice. It wasn't just about the blood seal for him now, the entire idea of a mission outside of Konoha clearly made him more excited then he'd been for a long time. He was all but rocking back and forth on his toes.

"C'mon Baa-chan, you know I need to go to that crypt to check it out."

The Hokage sighed as she rubbed her temples. Clearly Kakashi's team was going to be the death of her.

"Fine." She said finally. "Take Sai and the two of you will go to Uzushio—"

"I'll go with Naruto." Sasuke interrupted, his tone cold and daring someone to argue with him.

Unfortunately for him, Tsunade didn't take well to that sort of attitude, it reminded her far too much of a certain aloof teammate from her past.

"I'm sorry Uchiha, did I die and make you Hokage? You'll go where I tell you to!" She fumed, slamming her fist back down on her desk and causing it to crack a bit more under the force of her hands.

"You and Kakashi are going to Sound, where you can at least use whatever knowledge you have of the bases to find Karin. And hopefully you can persuade her to follow you back. Sakura, you're going to stay here and try and make friends with the Lady Asuka and see what you can find out from her and this Kumeda character."

Sakura looked crestfallen, and Tsunade's gaze softened a bit. "And I also wanted to teach you a new medical ninjutsu as well, so I'll need you close by—" The pink haired girl brightened immediately at Tsunade's words. The Hokage smiled indulgently at her favored student before continuing.

"And I can contact some agents in Kumo for more information there, though I may also send Kurenai's old team out just to verify." She decided, not noticing Naruto's face visibly paling.

"Ah, Baa-chan…" The blonde began awkwardly, not really knowing where to begin as he tried to find the right words. "Is there any way another team can go to Kumo instead? I really don't want this getting too public…"

"More like you really don't want that girl with big tits to find out you're gonna marry someone else." Sai remarked, only to be almost pummeled again by Sakura.

"SAI!" The pink haired kunoichi hissed, blushing hard enough for everyone else in the room. Naruto looked distinctly uncomfortable again, and Sasuke was still simmering over being told what to do. Kakashi pretended he hadn't heard any of it, his nose still buried in his book.

Tsunade understood the implication immediately though. Even though she was Hokage, even she had heard about what happened between Naruto and Hinata at Ichiraku's last week. She bit a lip and looked back at the team roster she was holding in her other hand.

Kakashi's eye roved over to Sasuke to see the man looked bored again—though the Uchiha's left eye was threatening to twitch and unveil his barely contained frustration at the entire situation.

"Well, I'll wait on Kurenai's team unless I don't get anything substantial back from our agents already placed in Kumogakure. As for the rest of you, leave tomorrow at dawn. And Naruto—" She called out, just as the group nodded and moved towards the exit.

The jinchuriki turned back to the Hokage, and realized that she really was getting a lot older then he had realized, the weight of running the village wearing her down, visible in the sadness in her eyes.

Not that he would ever tell her that. He liked having the ability to procreate well enough, thank you.

"Naruto, please try to get back as soon as you can. I don't want to take risks with a seal like this until we know how to remove it." She said, and Naruto saluted her from the edge of his hitiate.

"You got it Baa-chan! We'll be back before you can say the seal's broken!"

And with that, they were gone. Tsunade sat back down again, running her hands through her hair as she stared at the blood seal again, as if glaring at it hard enough would force it to vanish.

She would be damned if something else got in the way of Naruto's destiny, she thought to herself, feeling freshly motivated.

Tsunade cracked her fingers and bent over the scrolls again, getting back to work.

* * *

Sakura prided herself on her beauty rest, and saw the mission as an opportunity to finally relax a little—especially when Tusnade had all but given her the rest of the day off.

She reminded her four boys to take care of themselves, hugging each of them (much to Sasuke and Kakashi's discomfort), and asking them to get her a souvenir before they parted ways (Mainly as a joke-though she would admit that Sai did always find her some interesting presents when she asked for them).

After letting her parents know she would be staying in town for a while, she enjoyed a nice dinner with them and got to bed early, deciding to crash in her old room at home rather then returning to her empty apartment on the other side of town. She reveled in the use of her mother's large bath tub, and took the extra time to put on a face mask and some truly expensive lotion, thinking all the while that she could use this mission as a vacation, and rub her beautiful skin in Ino's face.

And she would also learn some kick ass new jutsu to boot! Inner Sakura pumped her fist in the air as the pink haired kunoichi settled into her sheets with a relaxed sigh. Though she could cause earthquakes with her fists, there was still an inherent part of Sakura that just liked girly things, and anyone entering her room could see that. There were fresh flowers from Ino on her vanity (and the blonde had only slipped in one semi-poisonous rose that would cause Sakura's face to break out this time, which was an improvement), and her comforter had remained the same for the last ten years, dark green with a little cherry blossom pattern dancing across the front, perfectly warm for the oncoming chill of the autumn night.

Sakura hadn't even realized she had dozed off until she was woken by dark presence appearing in her window, the energy crackling over the windowsill and dancing across the walls of her bedroom like something alive. Clearly whomever it was wanted her to know they were there. The kunoichi reached for the kunai she kept under her pillow, her fingers curling around the handle as she continued to feign sleep.

"I know you're awake." A silky voice murmured, sandaled feet inaudibly padding onto the hardwood floor as its owner stepped into her room. Sakura swallowed, checking to make sure she was really _was_ awake. Too many of her strangest dreams had started this way…

"Sakura."

Sasuke's deep baritone made her sit up, blade still in her hand as she tried to appear more relaxed and nonchalant then she felt, covering her mouth with a hand as she yawned, her arms stretching up and over her head.

"Sasuke, what are you doing here?" She asked, as if showing up in her bedroom window was a perfectly normal thing for the Uchiha to do, much more tense now that they were alone. The events from the previous morning immediately began replaying again in her head as she watched the man take in the sight of her bedroom for the first time. The pale skin of his throat all but glowed in the moonlight, and all Sakura could think about was Naruto's blonde hair as the imaginary blonde ran his teeth over the Uchiha's pulse. She shook her head at the memory, as if trying to physically dislodge it from her skull.

"I need you to do something." Sasuke said, and Sakura feigned another yawn to hide the fact that her mouth had almost dropped open.

Though it was much more likely for Sasuke to ask her to cut off his arm then to outright ask for her help, this was probably the closest Sakura was ever going to get.

"What is it?" She asked, and then got a glance at her alarm clock. Pink eyebrows furrowed as she read the time to be 3:07 am. "And why couldn't it wait until morning?"

"Because Sai might wake up soon." The Uchiha deadpanned, and that had the medic-nin stiffened immediately.

"What did you do to him?!" She hissed, trying to keep her voice low so that her parents wouldn't wake up. Sasuke shrugged.

"I didn't kill him, if that's what you're asking." He said. Sakura grumbled as she rolled out of bed, tugging on her shoes with a grimace. She glanced towards the open window; half expecting to see an unconscious Sai hanging out and over the side.

"You're crossing a line Sasuke. Tsunade has killed people for less."

"She won't kill me." Sasuke said with that same, assured voice that she used to find so attractive, but now, just made her want to punch her old crush right in the jaw. Maybe Naruto had the right idea earlier after all.

"She'll keep you confined to the village for sure." Sakura said, settling her hands on to her hips. Sasuke made a sound of nonchalance.

"Whatever. Are you going to help or not?" He asked, his eyes finished with searching her room and snapping up to meet hers.

Sakura could always remember why she had been so infatuated with the man for so many years whenever he looked at her like that. Without the sharingan, his eyes seemed so much softer. As much as he tried to always look disdainful with the rest of the world, his eyes were his vulnerability as well as his greatest weapon, and she always felt her heart skip a beat when he met her gaze like this, despite that her little crush was long dead.

He probably knew that though, which is why he was doing it, Sakura thought, sighing again and frustratedly running one of her hands through her hair. Damned Uchihas and their pretty faces and bedroom eyes.

"What?" She asked, almost matching his monotone as she moved to her closet to grab her flak jacket. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

"Tomorrow, I need you to henge into me and go to the Land of Rice with Kakashi." Sasuke said. "Just make sure you don't let Kakashi realize who you are until you're at least a few day's travel from the village. You can henge into me again when you meet Karin, so she'll come back with you." He said, and Sakura blinked a few times, trying to make sure she heard correctly.

"You want me to go against Tsunade's direct orders and try to find Karin in one of Orochimaru's old bases?!" She demanded. Sasuke rolled his eyes, as if she was stating the obvious.

"Yes. I'm going to pretend to be Sai with Naruto at first too. And I need you to hide Sai somewhere he can be kept unconscious for around a day. I'll trap him in an illusion, but it'll be easier to just leave his body in one spot than move him while he's in my genjutsu."

Sakura blinked at him once, then twice, still not believing her ears.

"Sasuke—why do you want to go with Naruto so badly? It does make the most sense for you to go after Karin, you know all of the bases and you can probably figure out where she's been and where she's going. All Kakashi and I will have are our hunches and his dog summons." She said, and saw the raven's fingers twitch a little.

"I'll give you all of the base locations." He said, trying to maintain that distant, over-cool tone. "I just need...some time."

"Oh." Sakura said, suddenly reminded again of what she had seen in that clearing that morning. Her expression softened.

"But how long have you two—" She began, and Sasuke shook his head.

"No Sakura."

"No what?" She asked, feeling hurt, even though she knew exactly what the man was going to say.

"It's not any of your business. We're still…" Sasuke paused, and Sakura watched his mind travel somewhere else, his eyes staring at the cracked paint in the corner of her bedroom.

"Still figuring it out." He said with a shrug, his eyes flicking back to hers. His tone spoke volumes, and Sakura decided to drop the subject. Sasuke would probably open up to her when Kakashi decided that cats were the animals he truly loved.

"Whatever, that still doesn't mean I'm going to go against Tsunade's direct orders to help you. This isn't about your personal agenda Sasuke." Sakura said, crossing her arms over her chest, and thinking about how pissed Kakashi would be. Their mission would probably be miserable, traipsing through rice fields for that red-haired bitch Sakura still hated, and that wasn't even mentioning what her Shishou would do to her when she returned.

"Do it, or I'll tell Naruto you've been spying on us for weeks." Sasuke said, leaning back against her wall with a smirk as her expression froze on her face.

Damn it. Sasuke knew as well as she did that something like that would not go over well. Naruto was someone who trusted easily, but once his trust was broken, it was damned difficult to win back. And to have someone like Sakura, one of the few he trusted with his life, be the person to break his confidence and privacy—

Well it wouldn't be pretty, to say the least.

Sakura sighed and rolled up the sleeves of her pajamas.

"Alright Uchiha, you win. Where's Sai now?"

Sasuke's eyes flashed crimson as he looked at her, his lips twitching up in a smirk.

* * *

Sai awoke 18 hours later, tied hand and foot to a bedpost in what he presumed was the bedroom of a twelve year old girl, his face inches from a large stuffed cat doll. Additionally, he was found himself in a state of _undress_ , which made him...rather uncomfortable. Very rarely feeling things like discomfort, Sai was initially fascinated by the emotion, and took a long moment to really savor the sensation.

Then he realized that that his experience of acute emotions meant that he was in the hands of an expert torturer, the ex-root agent leaned his head back against the bed frame and began to count backwards from a thousand, recalling the hellish dreams he had just woken up from where he had been poked at and prodded in the most uncomfortable of places for days on end.

Once he finished counting, his eyes blinked open to wander over the decorations in the girly room, finally settling on the hairbrush that sat on the nightstand closest to him.

Entwined in the bristles were strands of pale, blossom pink hair.

Sai speculated if he had been, as a layman would say, ravished in his sleep. Surely the ropes tying him to the bedposts indicated that to be the case.

"Hag?" He called out hesitantly, just as the bedroom door opened to reveal a middle aged woman that could only be Sakura's mother entering the room, a duster tightly gripped in her hand, freezing as she saw a half dressed man tied to Sakura's old bed.

Their eyes met, and two stared at each other for a long moment that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, Sai blinking as he tilted his head to the side.

"I think your daughter may have raped me." He deadpanned, still wondering why he didn't remember any of it. But maybe that was common place in shows of sexual domination? He was going to say more, but failed as he had to dodge the feather duster aimed with shinobi-like precision at his head, followed by a music box and an old paper weight.

"It's not your fault that you raised a deviant!" He tried to say, hoping it would calm the woman.

Mrs. Haruno's screams were heard half way across the village, and Sai's wounds wouldn't heal fully for another week.

* * *

 **So more of a filler chapter, but the mission is starting next, so more fun to come, I promise! I want to hear your feedback! Reviews make the world go round.**

 **-Prosely**


	5. Deceptions

Chapter 5: Deceptions

* * *

Karin's eyes opened and she groaned immediately, feeling as if a kunai had been lodged right at the base of her skull.

Blinking her burgundy eyes a few more times, she reached a hand back to feel for the kunai in question, only to have her arm jerk. She tried to pull again before registering the feeling of steel biting into her flesh. Handcuffs. She was bound back somehow, her range of movement limited. She swore as the room around her slowly came into focus.

Her hands were chained to the walls on either side of her, rendering her unable to move farther than a few centimeters in either direction. Her feet were bolted down in cuffs behind her, forcing her to remain in a half-suspended, kneeling position.

She was clearly in some sort of prison, the kunoichi thought, squinting through her broken glasses at her surroundings. The walls around her were made from a plain grey stone that looked coarse to the touch. Water dripped from an unknown crack in the ceiling in the far corner, forming a dark stain on the floor, but aside from that, it was fairly clean for what she assumed was a torture cell.

Karin tugged again at the cuffs, feeling the sting of a seal pressing into the delicate skin of her wrist, absorbing any excess chakra in her system. It had left her with only just enough to stay conscious. Whoever had her clearly knew what they were doing—

And that worried her more then anything else.

Most people underestimated her, thinking her to be weak, and that was how she managed most of her spectacular attacks and defenses. But now she _was_ too feeble to even get a read on chakra signals outside of the room, though that might've been because of the other seals she could see glimmering on the walls. They were a form of fūinjutsu sealing Karin had never seen before, wild swirls and rolling jagged marks that were wholly unfamiliar and alien looking.

Someone had clearly put a lot of thought into making sure she stayed where she was.

She was considering the merits of swinging her arms as far as she could push them to see if that had any effect on the cuffs or the chains that were bolted into the wall when the door across from her opened abruptly, and a dark robed figure silently entered, feet gliding soundlessly over the stone floor.

"What do _you_ want?" Karin spat, though the stranger's face remained hidden from view. Karin's nose flared, and she caught the scent of musk and old books wafting from the heavy cloth.

"I'm glad you've finally woken up." Some sort of distortion device masked the newcomer's voice, rendering it unrecognizable and robotic as the figure stepped towards her in five long strides, brandishing a needle.

"Don't worry, I just need a quick blood sample. Won't hurt at all."

Karin's arm jerked away as she growled at the robed figure, only to hear that strange robot voice softly "tsk" at her.

"Tut tut tut, that won't do. Please be still, or I'll have to string you up. That's not pleasant." The kunoichi's cerise eyes widened, and she began to resist even more violently, despite the threats her captor had made. The stranger's gloved hand followed her movements, as if just waiting for her to stop for a second so they could get a stab in.

"Why do you even want my blood?!" She demanded, jerking away again as the needle loomed closer. The faceless shinobi paused, as if thinking about what it would cost them to answer her. Karin's violent flailing slowed, her chest heaving. She was far weaker than she thought—even this low-energy resistance was intensely draining for her.

Suddenly her captor was behind her, ripping off the entire sleeve of her left arm with a quick snap and pulling the limb taunt so the needle could sink deep into one of the unscarred, pulsing veins of her pale elbow. Karin swallowed as she watched the vial fill up, the red liquid of her blood luminescent in the dim light of the dungeon. She wondered if the strange shinobi was going to draw enough to kill her. With her chakra levels so low, she wouldn't be able to replenish it fast enough.

"Your healing properties of course. I'd like to study them. You ran away from my men in Daeshu before we could work out an agreement." Static fizzled from the voice distorter, but Karin was distracted by the memories of what she had seen in that small village. Her lips parted in a gasp of rage.

"You—that was you?! Daeshu was a fucking genocide!" She hissed, again feeling faint as the blood level in the vial rose. Robed shoulders shifted in a semblance of a shrug.

"I was running a test." The stranger replied nonchalantly, sounding as if he or she was a schoolteacher indulging a wayward student. "A very important one that you so _rudely_ interrupted."

"That child was murdering—"

"It was a necessary test." The robed figure said, the static grumbling with what might've been a sigh, as if it pained them to have so much violence on their hands. Karin grit her teeth as the needle finally slid from her arm, knowing she had to be looking sallow and pale—she was going to faint again.

"I'll be injecting you with key vitamins and supplements now, but I've also included a sedative to make sure the supplements are effectively absorbed into your system. I appreciate your cooperation."

The voice said crisply, as if this was a routine doctor's check up. Karin opened her mouth to protest, but her faceless captor was already punching another thick needle into her arm. She felt the heavy sedative almost immediately, making the haziness worse and blackness swirl at the edge of her vision.

"What…are you…going…to do?"

She heard herself asking, fighting to stay away even as all the tension left her body. She gasped for another breath before the drug hit her heart. In a single, swift thud, the sedative was pulsed directly towards her brain, Karin fell to the floor, boneless.

The stranger stepped over her with a soft cluck of disapproval.

"Tut tut tut, foolish Uzumaki girl." The voice said, heading back to the door before turning around and pausing, as if considering her question, though the kunoichi was no longer able to hear the answer.

"I'm going to take control of the kyuubi of course. And you've just helped me more then you realize."

The vial of Karin's blood glimmered in the firelight before it disappeared into the robe, and the door shut with a heavy thud.

* * *

"What're you doing now?" Sakura asked, watching Sasuke as he continued to ignore her questions, continuing with his long string of elaborate hand seals. The Uchiha reached up to pull a single hair from his head after he finished another ten seals, blowing onto the dark strand with a soft breath.

"It's a cloning jutsu."

"Not a henge? I thought you were just going to teach me a really powerful genjutsu?"

Sasuke shrugged, gently placing the hair on the table as it began to move of its own accord. Sakura watched, fascinated, as it began to wriggle wildly, bending in every direction.

"That won't fool Kakashi or Karin."

The hair writhed, before suddenly inflating, growing and transforming until it suddenly grew arms, legs, and a very distinct hairstyle that Sakura would only say resembled the spiky rear end of a duck when she decided she wanted her life to end early. The kunoichi choked on the glass of water she had been drinking, seeing what looked like a deflated version of a Sasuke balloon appear on the floor of her bedroom.

"What _is_ that?!" She demanded, hesitantly prodding at the eerily flat, rubbery looking doll with her toe. Sasuke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's a jutsu Kabuto was developing a few years ago. He never finished it, but I made some adjustments on my own. Use your chakra and you should be able to pull it on like a suit. It'll mask your chakra with a semblance of mine."

Sakura looked at him, then back at the strange flesh colored thing before she noticed something very important. "Sasuke, it doesn't—" she glanced back at his fathomless expression. "—Doesn't have any clothes."

Sasuke closed his eyes and seemed to count to three, a vein at his temple throbbing before he turned back to the window.

"I said it wasn't perfect. It matches to DNA, not fabric." He made a sound of annoyance. "I'll be right back." The Uchiha muttered.

"Put that on. And here." He tossed her the bag he had been carrying. Sakura opened it to find that it was filled with dark shirts and pants. Sasuke's _clothes_.

If someone had told her last week she was going to be holding a bag of Sasuke's boxers and shirts after he woke her up in the middle of the night, she would've laughed. She could make a fortune selling these, inner Sakura thought with a devious grin. Serves him right, blackmailing her into this insane scheme.

"Sasuke—" She started to protest having to slip into the creepy clone skin alone—but he had already vanished. Sakura swallowed, staring at the bizarre Sasuke flesh suit with abhorrence.

"Why did he have to go to Orochimaru?" She asked aloud, gently prodding the skin with a hand that glimmered with a bit of chakra. The new skin seemed attracted to the energy, and slid onto her hand of its own accord. She continued to add more and more chakra, and it began crawling over her body like something alive. She tried to ignore the strange feeling of her body being covered by another, keeping her eyes turned _away_ from the mirror, as much as her inner-self was begging for just a _tiiiiny_ peak at the sight most of the women in Konoha had always dreamed of seeing.

"Couldn't have picked anyone else, could he have? No, _Sasuke_ has to pick the creepy snake sannin." Sakura said the last part with clear disdain, squeezing her eyelids shut as Sasuke's features swallowed her own.

When the Uchiha returned, Sai's prone body carelessly thrown over his shoulder, he was met with his mirror image staring back at him from Sakura's desk, a perfect copy, down to his usual expression of disdain that shifted to half surprise when she realized Sasuke had a thick stream of blood running down his temple.

"What?" Sasuke asked, tossing Sai onto Sakura's bed. The kunoichi winced deciding not to comment on the fact that Sasuke had lied to her about kidnapping Sai in the first place, or that the artist was clearly more dangerous prey then Sasuke gave him credit for. She quickly moved to check her teammate for injuries, a strange look of concern overlapping her (or what looked like Sasuke's) elegant features. But at least the raven haired shinobi hadn't lied to her. Aside from being trapped in a genjutsu and a few bruises from what was probably a very unpleasant encounter with an Uchiha, Sai seemed perfectly healthy.

"You said this was based on DNA?" She asked, switching into medic mode. "This could potentially be a breakthrough with helping regrow artificial limbs or—"

"I'm not here for a lecture Sakura." Sasuke muttered, tugging a few strands of Sai's hair out and beginning to repeat the complex seals.

"And I can't believe there isn't a genjutsu aspect. There's no way." The kunoichi said in Sasuke's voice, looking into her mirror and running her hands through the clone's dark hair. "Your hair cannot possibly just look this good naturally. It's so…" She paused, searching for the right word.

"Springy? Soft? It's like living in a shampoo commercial!" She then tried messing up the Uchiha's distinctive hairstyle, only to find that somehow it looked even better when it was mussed. "Do you just wake up like this or something?" She asked in Sasuke's voice, his usual silky baritone taking an unnatural, girlish lilt.

The real Sasuke's right eye twitched, even as he moved to finish the next jutsu, placing Sai's hair on the table. The strand began to writhe before transforming into a Sai clone suit, and Sasuke reached up to pull a few more hairs from his head, depositing them into an empty pouch he procured from his pocket. He handed the pouch and a small scroll to Sakura.

"That scroll will do the jutsu for you again, just put my hair on it and use the snake handsign. But you can only re-do it once."

Sakura nodded, tucking the supplies away and turning back to her desk, where she was trying to compose an apology note to the Hokage for her actions.

"Tsunade-shisou is gonna murder me and it'll be your fault." She grumbled as she wrote, knowing that she was signing her own death warrant as she fastidiously ignored Sasuke being creepily leeched into by the Sai clone.

"She'll probably just have you cleaning bed pans for a few months." Sai's voice remarked. Sakura turned back around, and saw her other teammate standing in front of her. The kunoichi blinked a few times as she realized the clones really _did_ work—the suit seemed to swallow up Sasuke's naturally powerful presence of chakra and replaced it with what _felt_ like Sai's—she could only tell the subtle difference because she was looking for it.

Sasuke, or rather, Sai with a distinctly Sasuke-like expression of abhorrence for the cropped t-shirt he was wearing, nodded at her once—probably his way of saying thank you— before he vanished. And it was only after he did so that Sakura had realized he had left the real Sai tied to her bed wearing nothing but a his black underwear.

Sakura uncomfortably tried to cover her other teammate up with a blanket and silently apologized, thinking all the while of how many ways Sasuke owed her, spying or not, because this was ridiculous.

She glanced back up at Sasuke's reflection in her mirror and upon being disconcerted at Uchiha eyes widening at her in a reflection of her own surprise, realized again that she was way in over her head.

* * *

The sky was the color of a murky sea, filtering grey light through the canopy of trees above Naruto's head as he paced in front of the dead fire pit beside him. Sai remained immobile under the large tree standing in the center of the clearing, appearing to be meditating as Naruto tried to start the fire.

It was _weird_.

The blonde kept glancing up at his teammate, feeling the other man's gaze following his movements with half lidded eyes. Sai's wordless staring and exceptionally bizarre attitude throughout their entire trip so far (which was saying something, since is was _Sai_ ) was making the jinchuriki increasingly uncomfortable, and he kicked a stone beside the pit with a soft curse, sending it flying away from him and into the trees.

The old border between Fire Country and Whirlpool was marked by a stretch of ocean and stone that extended a few hundred kilometers long in every direction; a last testament to the utter destruction that had been wrought at the hands of the shinobi of Uzushio. With the excess of water so close, the air surrounding their small camp was even more damp than usual, though the humidity wasn't as bad as either of them predicted, thanks to the autumn chill that had steadily grown stronger as they travelled.

However, the heavy moisture in the atmosphere made it damnably difficult to light a fire. After a few tries with a pile of soggy wood, Naruto finally tried to light it with a small katon fireball jutsu that he'd picked up from Sasuke years ago for moments like this, only to watch the flames sputter and die on the wet tree branches.

A second, more…passionate attempt resulted in a small blast and a crater that stretched about a meter wide. As Naruto's clones hopped around to smother the fire, even as it sizzled on the sodden earth, he felt a supercilious look of disdain coming from Sai's direction, and the jinchuriki grit his teeth in frustration. Here he was, future Rokudaime Hokage, vessel of the omnipotent kyuubi and arguably one of the most powerful shinobis in the world, and Uzumaki Naruto couldn't even light a damn fire in the cold wet of the Whirlpool border without potentially blowing up half the damn forest.

Of course, the fact that the two ninja had been trekking through a daylong thunderstorm, and were now soaked to the bone hadn't helped either of their moods at all. The artist had stubbornly chosen a somewhat more dry position under an oversized tree to watch Naruto mutely, not even offering his help.

And that was another thing, the jinchuriki thought, running a tan hand through the wet blonde hair plastered to the nape of his neck. Sai hadn't said more than two words to his teammate since their initial greeting at the village gates this morning, and those words had included "dickless" and "No." within short succession of each other, mainly because Naruto had asked if they could just fly to Uzushio on one of Sai's "wicked cool ink birds."

"It'll just tell everyone who has eyes that Konoha is investigating the old Uzumaki ruins for some reason. It's too easy to connect the dots between that and you."

"What crawled up your ass and died Sai?" Naruto had retorted in response to the man's unusually supercilious attitude, ignoring that the artist had a point.

Sai had just ignored him and jumped ahead in the tree canopy.

And that had been the entirety of their conversation thus far.

"Are you just going to sit there?" Naruto demanded, a little more irritable then usual. He was damp, tired, and fresh out of ideas. They had been moving at a break-neck speed to try and get to the ruins of Uzushio as quickly as possible, but even though the blonde probably could've gone on for longer with the Kyuubi's abilities, the prospect of staying so wet for such a long time made him the first one to pipe up and request they set up camp. And he wasn't about to let Sai catch a cold and not realize it. The artist was just so oblivious to his own needs sometimes.

"I don't think I can be useful." Sai said with a shrug, his tone flat and not inviting any more cursory requests. Naruto wondered if he could get away with hengeing one of his clones into a rogue nin so that he could just punch the other man and not get in trouble for it.

He only wanted to do it _once_ , because damn did Sai know how to rub him the wrong way.

"Can't you like, I dunno, paint us up a fire or something? I wouldn't even care if it were fake at this point. As long as it's warm…" The jinchuriki's voice reflected his exhaustion, glancing back to the small hole he had made in the ground.

"No." Came the clipped response, and Naruto watched the cloaked shinobi shift his weight in the confines of his small, dry space beneath the tree.

As if on cue, rain began to patter through the leaves again, softly at first, before coming down harder, splashing across Naruto's cheek in heavy drops. The blonde felt a bead of water slide down from his temple and over the ridge of his nose before he shook himself, trying to dislodge the damp that seemed to have sunk into his bones. He grumbled something intelligible as he walked over to where Sai had made his little pocket of dryness.

Naruto sidled up next to the dark haired artist with a grunt, shoving him a bit when Sai looked as if he wasn't going to make room for him, the artist's slanted dark eyes widening in a modicum of surprise.

"Unless you're going to pitch a tent in this—" Naruto gestured to the sudden downpour, trying to ignore some of the water that made its way through the thick leafy branches above them both, splattering across Sai's cheek. The artist barely even blinked in response, unphased.

The ex-root agent looked like a drowned cat, his black hair slicked onto his pale skin, cloak closely wrapped around his slender body.

"Can't you even make like a canopy or something?" The blonde's voice was wavering from barely contained frustration. Sai was being even more obstinate than he had been before the war, and that was saying something.

"Can't. Too wet." The artist's clipped reply was so soft that Naruto almost didn't catch it.

"Too wet?" The jinchuriki was too surprised to manage his voice louder than a tired exhale. "How the hell do you even fight water based jutsu?" The blonde tried and failed to withhold some of the vitrol spilling past his lips. His so-called teammate's attitude had left him on edge all day, especially when he was stressed to begin with, after that fight with Sasuke—

Not that it mattered, Naruto thought, desperately trying to halt the train of thought before it went much further. Losing what precious little self-control he had in front of _Sasuke_ of all people was definitely _not_ something he wanted to contemplate for too long.

Cerulean eyes followed the abstract patterns of rainfall as it began to pour, trying erase the image of Sasuke's eyes looking at him with fury again as the Uchiha spat the blood from his mouth. That animosity that simmered in the darkness of his rival's gaze, fueled years of rivalry and hatred and seemed permanently etched onto Naruto's mind. He was still haunted by the idea of what might have happened if—

—if Sasuke hadn't returned.

 _Stop it damnit_! The jinchuriki told himself. He and Sasuke had only just finally begun to heal their long-standing wounds—if Naruto caused the destruction of the fragile equilibrium they had managed to build between each other again it would destroy a part of him he had only recently just found again—that part that left with the Uchiha to Sound all those years ago.

He had been secretly relieved that his rival hadn't been assigned this mission with him. He knew Sasuke would just be itching for payback, or worse, that all consuming hatred that haunted Naruto's darkest thoughts would well up again and devour them both.

As much as the future Hokage hated to admit it, _that_ Sasuke was what he had come to fear the most. The Sasuke of his nightmares, whose face was twisted with madness; who sneered at him with disdain and loathing as a lightning laden hand pushed its way through his chest—the Sasuke that had almost existed, only to be destroyed and replaced with…what?

Sometimes when Naruto spoke to his long time rival now, it felt like the Uchiha was nothing more than a ghost, his life overwhelmed by the shadows of the hundreds who had died for him or by his hand.

The blonde was pulled from his dark thoughts by a small tremor running through Sai's body. The shiver was so small and faint, that if Naruto's shoulder hadn't been pressing into the artists, the blonde shinobi wouldn't have noticed.

"That's what you get for wearing that dumb outfit." The jinchuriki teased, trying to fall back into his usual mentality of light hearted camaraderie, shrugging off his cloak with a sigh before and dumping the thick, wet fabric onto Sai's shoulders.

Black eyes blinked up at him, a confused expression marring Sai's usually blank features.

"You need it more than I do. I run hot." Naruto said, conveniently leaving out the part that he would just get even wetter. But that mattered a lot less, if he was being honest with himself.

If Sai got ill during their mission, they would have to turn back, or he would have to leave the artist behind. And Naruto couldn't risk that, not without those mysterious scrolls that could be just sitting somewhere in Uzushio, waiting to be used against him.

"Damn rain makes everything suck."

Naruto's voice was rough as he tried to curl his body closer to the dry part of the trunk, suddenly feeling the exhaustion from using so much chakra earlier seep into his bones. He hadn't even tapped into the kyuubi's near limitless energy, but Kakashi had been advising him to try relying on it less to build on his own chakra reserves in case there came a day when suddenly he didn't have access to Kurama's power. He wasn't sure how Sai was still looking so perfectly alert and awake.

"Eh Sai, wake me up when we can pitch a tent and try making a fire again."

"Those fireballs aren't going to work." Sai deadpanned in response, his weird, forced smile twisting across his features. Naruto snorted.

"If they don't, I'll just light this tree on fire or something." The blonde's retort was, as usual, filled with bravado, even as the blue eyes slid shut, clearly unperturbed.

* * *

Sakura's attempt to convince Kakashi that she was Sasuke lasted a grand total of an hour after they left the village gates.

She had tried to stay calm, regulating her heartbeats to a normal speed, and even copied Sasuke's distinctly graceful but careless walk from her apartment all the way to the edge of Konoha.

She didn't say anything when Kakashi was three hours late, save for the expected "tch" sound she thought she could replicate almost perfectly. She didn't even absentmindedly stroke Sasuke's hair, or try to move it away from her face, though she wanted to. His bangs kept getting into her eyes, and it was really frustrating not being able to see out of her peripherals as well as she normally could, her pink hair having been pulled back behind a head band since she first cut it off. Sasuke was probably fine with his bangs because he had the sharingan, but if he had been anyone else she would've been surprised at how he just let it fall naturally.

Which was the other thing she was still mad about, Sakura thought as they leapt to the trees, feeling Kakashi's dark eye on her. She spent at least 20 minutes every morning blowing out her own pink tresses; running certain creams in it to make sure it looked nice, and so it would stay healthy and glossy even through the slog of heavy missions. But Sasuke's hair, oh no, even when she slept on it sideways on purpose—one quick shake and hand comb and it looked fucking _perfect_.

So Sakura's mood was foul, to say the least, even as she subtly sniffed Sasuke's shirt and wondering if it would be inappropriate to ask him which laundry detergent he used, or if eau du Sasuke was an exclusive cologne. If so, did he buy it somewhere? Because he couldn't have longer eyelashes, perfect hair, _and_ smell this nice: like the earth after rainfall with a heady mix of temple incense. He just _couldn't_.

He had to have some sort of secret, and she was going to get to the bottom of it or her name wasn't Haruno Sakura.

Perhaps a lot of her thinking was motivated by the fact that she was once again trying to distract herself from the real reason she was here, because Naruto and Sasuke were—

An image of Sasuke's head tilted back against the tree, hands threaded into blonde hair flashed in her mind again. Sakura swallowed slowly, once again trying to focus on anything else.

Sasuke and Naruto were—

"Sakura, you dropped this."

Kakashi's voice interrupted her train of thought as he alighted on the branch next to her, and she automatically opened her palm to acquiesce to his demand—

Only to have a pebble from the forest floor fall into her hand with an easy plop.

"I'm not Sakura." She said in Sasuke's flat baritone, curling her fist over the stone and smoothly flicking it into a tree, her mind in racing. _Shit, shit, SHIT_. _What would Sasuke say, what would Sasuke say_ ….damn this wouldn't be so hard if he had said more than five words to her outside of this crazy plan in the last week!

"Tch." She decided on, focusing on her Uchiha-style sidelong glare. Kakashi's visible eye had crinkled up as he smiled, seemingly impressed as they continued to run together with the ease that came with being teammates for so many years.

"You're very cute when you try to glare like Sasuke. But your nose wrinkles, so it kind of ruins the effect." He said, continuing his easy jump from branch to branch, staying just an arm's length away from her, knowing her well enough to safeguard himself from a direct hit.

"I'm going to assume you have a reason for doing this, but I'm not hiding you Tsunade when we get back."

Sakura opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it again abruptly. Damn Kakashi and his damn near blood-hound level ability to sniff out deception.

"I can't take off this jutsu until we're out of Fire Country. And it's a bitch and a half to use again so I'm only taking it off once." She muttered in Sasuke's voice, her fingers curling into fists.

"As long as you're not doing anything too naughty with it, I'm sure that'll be fine." Kakashi remarked, and Sakura felt her cheeks redden—mortified, because she didn't realize how easily Sasuke could blush, she tried to control herself, but that just made her stumble and blush more, her entire face coloring like a tomato.

"Aw, I didn't even know Sasuke could look that cute either. We should tell him when we get back." Kakashi said, his eye still grinning as Sakura began to plot the many ways she could maim the old man as they drew closer to the border of Konoha proper, jumping from the tree branches to the ground to greet the guard shinobi that watched the edges of the village.

 _Damnit Sasuke_ , she thought for the umpteeth time in the last 24 hours.

It was her last thought before the road beneath her feet exploded, the earth crumbling beneath her shoes and swallowing both her down into the darkness.

"Kakashi!" She screamed-

The ground closed above her like the mouth of a tailed beast.

* * *

Sasuke was, perhaps because of Sakura's ill wishing, in a state of deep internal conflict as he watched Naruto's eyes close. He hadn't thought that pretending to be Sai would be so difficult.

The Uchiha had presumed that, given their marginally similar looks to begin with that pretending to be Sai would be about as difficult as a C-level mission (though he privately maintained that it really was quite a stretch: Aside from their coloring, Sasuke didn't feel like he and Sai had anything in common). Additionally, the fact that Sai was awkward at conversation and equally as awkward with Naruto as anyone else, Sasuke had privately considered this the easiest deception he would ever have to pull off.

But that was before they left.

He had forgotten just how… _Naruto_ -like his old teammate was on missions, chattering up a storm and eliciting sardonic responses from Sasuke that the Uchiha couldn't give from within his henged body. Though he had mentally filed away all of the comments he tallied as "typical moron" for later verbal sparring, Sasuke had found it increasingly difficult to keep his thoughts to himself.

It wasn't a problem he usually had, but it was something about Naruto that left him feeling…almost susceptible somehow, like an exposed nerve, pulsing hotly whenever his rival got to close.

It almost seemed if the blonde was also thinking about that strange tension they had elicited from each other in the forest yesterday. Sasuke knew _he_ was still preoccupied, methodically moving through the forest with only a little more awkwardness than usual as he adjusted to Sai's more lithe frame. His mind continued to wander back to that moment where he had once again felt that dark, all consuming hatred that almost threatened to return Naruto and him to who they were in the days of the last war. It was the vestigial remains of of the overwhelmingly dangerous, all consuming violence that had always lingered at the edges of their bond, the poison only recently starting to ebb with Sasuke's re-assimilation Konoha life.

And Sasuke didn't care for the temptation and vehemence that dark part of him embodied. Not anymore. Yet, despite everything he and Naruto had gone through together, he could still feel its undertones throbbing beneath the delicate exterior of their relationship. It was a shadow that both of them were afraid of, their peculiar power to bring out the worst in each other, just as they also brought out an incredible and unmatched power.

Trying to distract himself, the Uchiha set the fastest pace he could maintain without burning through all of his chakra reserves, hoping the effort would keep Naruto quiet.

It had worked for a while, until the sky had opened up on them both with a torrential downpour that lasted for almost four hours, as they seemed to be running in conjecture with the storm.

Which then led them to be trapped here, beneath the small canopy Sasuke had found reasonably dry, waiting for the next deluge to pass so they could set up their camp for the night.

The blonde had unsuccessfully tried to start a fire with a jutsu Sasuke had remembered showing him back when they were genin, and the Uchiha was forced to contain a smirk as the first attempt failed and the second backfired spectacularly, keeping his expression carefully blank even as Naruto cursed and stomped around.

Sasuke, who had been trying to understand his complicated feelings for his rival, found his eyes riveted on the drops of water slipping from the ends of blonde spikes, slithering down the delicate contours of the man's throat before disappearing into his jacket. The rain had darkened Naruto's blonde hair, and it clung to the back of the man's neck, twining around tan fingers as they ran through the damp strands in clear frustration—

The Uchiha mentally shook himself to try and dislodge the distorted thoughts in his head.

 _It's not real_. Sasuke hissed to himself, ignoring the wicked growling of the monster that prowled beneath his skin; that same shadowy part of him the sharingan tapped into, overwhelmingly concerned with satiating the lust he had for his closest friend and rival.

Certainly, his abhorrent fascination had begun shortly after the first time he had unknowingly instigated Naruto to come dangerously close to kissing him, when Sasuke's subconscious and sharingan had betrayed him.

But the kiss that Sakura had seen made everything so much worse. Sasuke's eyes had woken him up from a dead sleep the night prior, bright red and painful, swirling at a dizzying speed as it replayed every tantalizing detail of that moment: the salty taste of Naruto's sweat, the feeling of his hot skin and hotter mouth, teeth scraping across Sasuke's neck, lips insistently pressing against his, demanding—

And then the images bled into violence, replaying Sasuke's greatest victories and losses, working with Naruto and then turning against him, threatening them both with that overwhelming darkness that he had almost succumbed to—

"Knowing he was going to die was what woke your sharingan. As much as you've told yourself it was about self-preservation Sasuke, you and I both know that it was because of _him_."

Itachi's voice in the back of his mind sickened him. His fingers unconsciously clenched themselves into a fist. Sasuke would fight those… _urges_ back, even as they threatened to overwhelm him. He was not _weak_.

He had forced himself from his bed and into another freezing cold shower, the water icy and burning as he tried to erase the photographic memories from his mind. He had to _control_ it.

His intensive research of the old clan vaults for the past month told him that it was very likely an effect of his incredibly powerful manifestation of his keke-genkai. His sharingan had imprinted on Naruto, and now that he was finally becoming more at peace with himself and his life, his treacherous eyes were going to continue to react in response to that imprint whenever the two were apart, forcing Sasuke to have a ludicrous desire to be near enough to his rival to sate it until he could figure out an answer.

Which is why Sasuke had to come up with the somewhat nonsensical plan to switch with Sai in the middle of the night. With his own bloodline limit threatening to drive him mad, he had to make sure Naruto was close enough for him to continue working through…whatever psychosis this was.

But as the blonde shouldered over next to him, Sasuke felt that it was going to be a far more difficult endeavor than he had initially imagined, his skin beginning to tingle wherever Naruto's heat pressed into his side.

Did Naruto not understand the idea of personal space? His overwhelming presence, even more powerful when the Uchiha was trapped in an image of Sai's svelte form made the raven feel acutely uncomfortable, particularly since he was dressed in the artist's blatantly effeminate clothing. All that stood between Naruto's bare hands and the skin of Sasuke's clone stomach was a flimsy cloak that was soaked through with water—

The thought made Sasuke shiver. Though he managed to suppress the feeling quickly enough, Naruto's blue eyes blinked over to him in surprise.

"Here." The blonde said, shouldering off his own cloak and layering over Sasuke (or Sai, as it seemed to the blonde). The Uchiha was so surprised he couldn't even form a retort or rejection, and just blinked at his teammate for a long second, once again distracted again by how…wet Naruto was.

Sasuke's nostrils flared as he again reasserted his self-control—but control over his emotions had never been his strong suit, as much as he loathed to admit it. Though he didn't wear his emotions out on his sleeve like Naruto did, they still drove him.

"You need it more than I do. I run hot." Naruto grumbled, tilting his head back and giving Sasuke an even closer view of how the water glided over his tantalizing skin, dipping into a shadowy part of his collar bone. With a slow swallow and hating himself all the more, the Uchiha averted his eyes back towards the clearing, pretending to ignore the blonde, though that couldn't be farther the truth. He didn't think he had ever been so focused on another human being's presence in life, save for perhaps his brother's during their final battle.

"Eh Sai, wake me up when we can pitch a tent and try making a fire again." Naruto mumbled, and from the relaxing of his muscles, Sasuke realized the blonde was about to just fall asleep on top of him. The thought incensed him. Didn't the idiot have any sense of self-preservation, even after years of being a shinobi? Or was this something he and Sai did all the time? The second notion made him all the angrier.

"Those fireballs aren't going to work." He said in an attempt at Sai's usual colorless tone, unable to help himself.

"If they don't, I'll just light this tree on fire or something." Came the ever-eloquent response, and Sasuke sighed, wanting to gently wrap his fingers around the other man's neck and throttle him.

Black eyes slid over to Naruto again, to find the man had already leaned his head back in faux-sleep, ignoring the increasing rain that continued to fall down around them.

Thunder rumbled above, as if the sky hungered for them both.

* * *

Kumeda paced the length of the room, clearly agitated as Asuka rolled one of the apples they had picked up from the market that morning in a perfectly manicured hand.

"Stop worrying Kume, you're making me dizzy." The noblewoman said, falling back onto her bed, long red hair fanning out across her pillow. The Cloud-nin's bloodshot eyes turned to his charge, narrowing at her as she inspected the apple in her hands.

"If Naruto isn't the one that tries to break the seal in Uzushio the entire plan will be ruined. Only Uzumaki blood will trigger the seals I set up." He said, feeling the knots twisting in his shoulders. He sighed, forcing himself to take a seat. He had been surprised when the infamous Kakashi had come to their door last night, amused eyes crinkling at him as the former Hokage politely asked for all of the information Kumeda had gathered on Uzushio when he travelled there to find the original blood seals.

Kumeda had of course, immediately and innocently handed over all of the fake maps he had so painstakingly made with this precise scenario in mind, hoping of course, that the idiots would think to actually send the Uzumaki to try and break through the seals on the clan vaults.

"Has the Master sent any other news?"

"No. Nothing since I reported that Konoha was probably going to be looking for the other Uzumaki girl back in Sound, as predicted. The Uchiha was way too hostile towards you. He must have thought of her immediately." The plain faced man said, his brown eyes closing as he tilted his head back. The sitting around in the room was driving him mad, but the woman he was charged with protecting was perhaps driving him madder.

"Ah yes, Uchiha Sasuke. Mm." Asuka was still talking to him, and he was obligied to listen and grunt in response. She had slept for almost twenty hours, and she was always the worst when she first woke up from her long rests. Perhaps more horrifying was that she wouldn't be sleeping again for a week, and would most likely spend most of their mutual waking hours talking or worse, _shopping_. Though her strange sleeping schedule benefited her abilities, Kumeda still tried to make her voice smaller in his mind, fighting off his migraine.

"He was just as pretty as they said you know," the woman continued. "The Uchiha, I mean. But Naruto-oh." She paused, closing her eyes and folding her hands and the apple over her chest. "He's Minato's spitting image." She said, her lips curving in the smile of a satisfied cat before she suddenly frowned again.

"Or he would be if he wasn't wearing that abhorrent color. Orange looks terrible with my hair. Hideous."

She tossed the apple in the air, and Kumeda listened to it land in her hands over and over again with satisfying _thunks_ , like the sound of a kunai meeting skin. He realized she was catching the fruit with the ends of her long nails, severing its flesh into pieces.

A fleck of juice landed on his cheek, and he opened his eyes again.

"They'll probably send the Uchiha to look for the other Uzumaki girl. The red haired one." He said, watching as Asuka began to consume the apple chunks sticking to her nails.

"I'm sure Gaki will be able to capture him. Master made Gaki especially for handling the sharingan and lightning affinity, remember?"

"But he also has the snakes from Orochimaru. And what if they send the Copy-nin with him?"

Asuka shrugged. "The copy-nin uses Sharingan and lightning too. And I'm sure that if they even get through Gaki the others will take care of them."

Kumeda ran a hand through his hair.

"You're right, you're right." He felt a strange prickling sensation, and glanced back to see Asuka's dark red eyes focused on him with a heady intensity.

"Have you taken your medicine today Kume? I know you're always putting it off. Master says it's not good for you."

Kumeda's eyes flicked back to the pillbox on the bedside table.

"Leave me then, Asuka, so I can get on with it."

She made a show of finishing her apple, sliding the pieces between her full lips as Kumeda looked on with a dull stare, clearly preoccupied with the pain he knew was in his near future. The noblewoman got up to leave, running the back of a long finger down the cloud nin's temple and cheek as she passed him in a flutter of red silk.

"Don't worry so much Kume. Once we get the Kyuubi, we'll put everything back to the way it should be." She said softly, glancing at herself in the mirror one more time before vanishing out the door.

Kumeda put his head in his hands and sighed.

"Will it be worth it though?" He asked, ignoring the tremor in his fingers as he stood.

No one answered.


End file.
